ITS PLACE IN HOTATION. 125 



indeed, some old leases to be found in Cambridgeshire, 

 which stipulate that the land shall be sown with hemp in 

 the last two years of the term, while in others there are 

 covenants absolutely prohibiting its growth ; but all agree 

 in admitting it to be an effectual cleanser of the land, 

 for it grows with such promptitude and strength, that it 

 destroys all the weeds which spring up under it. It 

 therefore can never be sown along with grass-weeds ; 

 but, for the same reason, it is found to be an admirable 

 preparation for a crop of wheat, as the land must be 

 previously brought into a state of garden culture, and, if 

 heavily dunged, when treated in this manner, alternate 

 crops of wheat and hemp have been successively grown 

 upon the same ground during a series of years. In some 

 places it is not an uncommon practice to break up a 

 stubble late in the autumn, and after it has had the 

 benefit of the winter fallow, from twenty to twenty-five 

 loads of spit dung are laid upon the land, which is then 

 sown with hemp, after three ploughings. In the follow- 

 ing year an excellent crop of wheat is generally obtained, 

 and in the next a good crop of barley or flax, after which 

 hemp is again sown with a similar dressing." 



THE PLACE OF HEMP IN THE ROTATION OF CEOPS. 



The Baron de Morogues, in his essay on the means of 

 improving agriculture in Prance, observes that as hemp 

 is sown late in spring, the land may be made to bear two 

 crops in the year, by causing the hemp to be preceded 

 by green food of some kind or other. Thus, in the 

 Department of Maine-et-Loire, hemp is sown in May 

 immediately after a crop of raves, or large yellow field- 

 radishes, which answer many of the purposes of turnips ; 

 and in the Department of the Pas-de-Calais, it is made 

 to follow a crop of escourgeon, or four-rowed winter- 

 barley, mowed green. Hemp may be succeeded by wheat, 

 with the greater facility that it leaves the land clear early 

 in the season, and so allows an opportunity of preparing 

 it at leisure. la the north of France, where flax is 



