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PART OF 15,000 TONS OF RAW HEMP AT DANVILLE 

 Farmers grew the crop, hauled it in. got nothing for it. 



A^ IS NO 

 (/BONANZA 



Growers Lose $215,000 in 



Anthempco Failure at 



Danville 



I ^ /^ AST month as hemp growers 

 ^"r"^ in Vermilion, Iroquois and 



f-^^ Champaign counties tried in 

 vain to collect $215,000 owed them 

 for their 1937 crop by the bankrupt 

 Amhempco Corporation of Danville, 

 farmers in Piatt county were investi- 

 gating hemp as a possible cash crop. 



First to warn prospective hemp grow- 

 ers of probable losses was Vermilion 

 county's farm adviser, I. E. Parett. He 

 had seen farmers grow three crops, get 

 paid for two. He had seen the manu- 

 facture of a cotton substitute begin 

 and fail when the price of cotton to- 

 bogganed from 14 to seven cents per 

 pound. 



When the movement to grow raw 

 materials for industry on farms reached 

 a peak in 1934, Ball Brothers of Mun- 

 cie, Indiana, and W. and J. Sloan, 

 New York City carpet makers, organ- 

 ized the Amhempco Corporation. As- 

 sets of the new company included the 

 six-year-old, half million dollar plant 

 and equipment of the defunct Corn- 

 stalks Products Company near Danville. 



During 1934, corporation chemists 

 experimented with various farm crops 

 in an attempt to discover one that 

 could be economically refined and prof- 

 itably sold to makers of consumer 

 goods. Since the factory was equipped 

 to handle fiber crops for paper making, 

 hemp was one of the crops studied. 



The chemists announced later in the 

 year that they had perfected processes 

 for making a cotton substitute, plastics 

 and paper pulp from hemp. They dis- 

 played samples to prove that it can be 

 done. 



Armed with laboratory samples and 

 word pictures of a glowing future of 

 the industry, company agents went to 

 the country. They secured the aid of 

 prominent farmers in the vicinity in 

 their campaign to secure an adequate 

 acreage of hemp. 



In a period when other crops were 

 bringing less than normal returns, 

 hemp was a promising cash crop. Am- 

 hempco promised to pay |10 per ton 



for properly cured stalks on delivery. 

 Yields, growers were told, would vary 

 from two and one-half to three tons 

 per acre. 



In 1935, more than 900 acres of 

 hemp was grown in the Danville area. 

 While the crop was no bonanza, it paid 

 better than oats. It required no culti- 

 vation, no threshing and no special 

 machinery other than harvesters that 

 were furnished by the company. In 

 addition, hemp turned out to be a top- 

 notch weed killer and fitted well into 

 crop rotations. 



With a bumper crop in 1935, pros- 

 perity smiled on the new industry. 

 Contracts with the U. S. Navy, rug 

 makers and building materials distri- 

 butors assured success. The plant em- 

 ployed 60 to 80 persons regularly and 

 all growers were paid. 



The 1936 crop was not as large as 

 the one before but growers got $15 

 per ton. The plant operated steadily 

 turning out hemp fiber at a cost of 

 9'/^ <^cnts a pound. With cotton sell- 

 ing for 12 cents a pound and above, 

 there was, apparently, a margin of 

 profit. 



When the 1937 crop season came, 



the hemp processing plant seemed well 

 established and more than 300 farmers 

 planted a total of 1000 acres in the 

 crop. In June both hemp and wheat 

 crops gave promise of large returns. 

 Then things began to happen. Rust 

 ruined the wheat crop ; it wasn't worth 

 harvesting. Hemp prospects remained 

 good until word got around that Am- 

 hempco had failed to pay its workers. 



The cotton market was weak and 

 the price dropped to ten cents. Con- 

 tracts for hemp, fiber were cancelled. 

 From July until most of the hemp was 

 harvested in October, cotton continued 

 its downward trend and Amhemjxro 

 lost its fiber market. 



In addition to their loss of market 

 the hemp processors suffered two dis- 

 astrous fires. The first occurred on 

 October 31 and consumed one-quarter 

 of the 1937 hemp crop, 6,000 tons 

 valued at |52,000, which had been 

 stacked near the Dixie highway in 

 Iroquois county. The second fire, De- 

 cember 11, burned part of the factory, 

 caused $500,000 damage. 



Reported the Danville Commercial- 

 News, "At one time there were seven 

 fires in different parts of the plant, four 



r 



DECEMBER 11, SEVEN FIRES AT ONE TIME 

 Ruins of the hemp plant, a groreyard for $500,000. 



