96 QUANTITY OF FLAX IMPORTED ANNUALLY. 



teeth. A good crop destroys all the weeds and makes it a fine 

 fallow. As soon as the flax is pulled, they prepare the ground 

 for wheat. Lime, marl, and the mud of ponds, is an excel- 

 lent compost for hemp lands. 



The quantity of hemp and flax yearly imported into this 

 kingdom was, about the year 1763, estimated at about eleven 

 thousand tons;* and I will venture to assert, that all this 

 quantity might be grown at home, without making a scarcity 

 or considerably enhancing the price of any article of our pre- 

 sent produce, or occasioning any want of hands for carrying on 

 our manufactures. On the contrary, I am induced to believe 

 it would occasion a considerable increase of people by inviting 

 numbers from the Continent to come and settle amongst us. 

 And as the hemp and flax we import come from countries 

 where the balance of trade turns in their favour, it would be 

 a great national advantage. 



It ought also to be remembered, that the hemp raised in 

 this kingdom is not of so dry and spongy a nature as that 

 we have from Petersburg. The only objection that our rope- 

 makers urge against using English hemp is, that it takes less 

 tar than the foreign to manufacture it into cordage. But as 

 tar is cheaper than hemp, they use this argument only because 

 there is less profit arises to them from working it. This is 

 therefore a substantial argument in its favour. And this in- 

 ference may be justly drawn from the objection, viz., that the 

 cordage made of English hemp, when compared with that of 

 the same dimensions worked with foreign, must be stronger in 

 proportion as there is more hemp and less tar in it, provided 

 there be a sufficient quantity to unite the fibres together ; 

 hemp being a stronger and more durable substance than tar. 



One peculiar advantage attending the cultivation of hemp 

 and flax is, that a crop of the former prepares the land for the 

 latter, and therefore a crop of hemp is a clear gain to the 

 farmer. That these plants impoverish the soil is A MERE 



VULGAR NOTION, DEVOID OF ALL TRUTH. THE BEST HISTO- 

 RICAL RELATIONS AND THE VERBAL ACCOUNTS OF HONEST 



* To raise this quantity at home would require about 60,000 acres of land. 



