120 HEMP. 



sometimes made to follow hemp, to be in turn followed 

 by wheat, it appears that the hemp is so favourable to 

 the subsequent crop, that it makes a very advantageous 

 rotation on the really good land which is alone suitable 

 to its culture. 



Mr. Turbilly states that he has frequently sown wheat 

 or winter oats after hemp, on newly-broken-up ground. 

 It is his opinion that hemp does not exhaust the soil for 

 plants of a different nature, when it is sufficiently kept 

 in heart by tillage and manure. This does not authorise 

 the continual sowing of hemp after hemp on lands which 

 only produce by the aid of manure that has been stolen 

 from the arable land, as is too often practised in Sologne, 

 where, according to a very bad custom, although it some- 

 times appears to succeed, the hemp-fields are made in- 

 satiable consumers and abysses of manure. 



It would not be difficult to introduce, on the good land 

 which is often left after the draining of marshes, the 

 triennial rotation of hemp, trefoil, and flax, which is em- 

 ployed in some of the valleys of Maine. It is applicable 

 only to first-rate land, and requires every year an abun- 

 dance of manure. But then, no system of culture is 

 more remunerative than this. No plants are more pro- 

 fitable than hemp and flax to small growers, who do all 

 their work themselves. Where this three-years' course 

 is practised, the land is divided into three equal portions, 

 the first of which is sown with flax combined with trefoil, 

 the second bears a crop of trefoil, and the third of hemp. 

 Eut, we repeat, this rotation, which is suitable only to 

 little holders, tending greatly to impoverish the earth, is 

 not only confined to strong soils, but the flax crop must 

 be manured with farm-yard manure (and limed also, 

 when the land is cold), and the hemp must be dressed 

 with ashes. In Maine there is some excellent land, 

 which has been cultivated in this way more than sixty 

 years, and still produces excellent crops. 



Combining hemp and flax with the Norfolk four-course 

 system, always of course on rich and deep soils, a con- 

 venient rotation would run as follows : 1st. Turnips, fed 



