THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 165 



THE NETTLE AND THE HEMP. 



A STUDY rOK THE GAEDEN BOWEB. 



|HE nettle and the hemp are two of the best known 

 plants in all the world ; yet while everybody to a cer- 

 tainty knows the first, there are people (not of the 

 ignorant class) who do not know the second. And 

 when I come to think of it, there are people (also not 

 of the ignorant class) who do not know the nettle thoroughly. It 

 is a delighfully hot day, and I am in no humour for preparing a 

 careful essay, but I have just had a walk round the garden, and the 

 nettles and the hemps have suggested to nie tliat something might 

 be said about them that perhaps would, at this season of the year, 

 interest the readers of the Eloeal Woeld. May I for once write 

 hastily, with strict regard to facts, and the least possible regard to 

 system ? I will venture, and hope, even in the rough, to be useful. 

 As to nettles, you have seen of late tvvo beautiful plants in 

 flower, the white dead nettle, Lamium album, and the red dead 

 nettle, Lamium purpui'eum. As the summer advances other dead 

 nettles will come into flower, one of the most noticeable being the 

 yellow weasel-snout, Galeohdoloii liiteum. Now these are cZear/ nettles, 

 and do not sting. In other words, they are not nettles at all, but 

 belong to the Labiate order, in which we find nearly all our savoury 

 herbs and home-grown spices, such as horehound, sage, mint, 

 thyme, marjoram, ground ivy, basil, etc. But there may be a dead 

 nettle that stings, for the labourers in the harvest field are some- 

 times afilicted with a severe inflammation of the hand or finger, 

 which they attribute to the common hemp nettle, or " dog nettle," 

 Galeopsis tetraJiif, which has tubular bristles arising from a swollen 

 base or vesicle. But it is by no means clearly established that this 

 plant has the power of stinging. 



The real nettle, Urtica, is a representative plant, for in the nettle 

 tribe IlETiCEiE we find the mulberry, the bread-fruit, the upas, the 

 cow-tree, the hemp, the hop, and the fig. The common nettle, Urtica 

 dioica, is in some places a pest, as on the borders of grass-fields and 

 in water-cress beds. But though feared and ruthlessly rooted out 

 by diligent farmers and gardeners, it might be made much of in the 

 arts. The young tops make a good spring vegetable when cooked 

 as spinach, but of much more importance is the tough fibre of its 

 stems, which may be manufactured into the strongest of ropes. 

 The ancient Egyptians so employed it, and moreover they wove its 

 finest fibres into linen of the best quality, so that this savage plant 

 helped in its day ,to clothe the voluptuous limbs of Cleopatra. 

 la Siberia and Piedmont nettle fibre is largely used, and in this 

 country it has been to some extent, but not to a great extent, em- 

 ployed in the manufacture of paper. The nutritive properties of 

 the nettle are not less important. The rough green herb may be 

 crushed to serve as fodder for horses, cattle, and sheep, and when 

 mixed with wheat straw, constitutes as good a food, barring hard 



June. 



