130 HEMP. 



maturity, within a very brief space of time ; it therefore 

 requires .to find its nourishment readily prepared and 

 easily absorbed. "When this is not sufficiently decom- 

 posed, either the plant languishes, starving in the raid- < 

 of plenty, and remaining small, stunted, and weak, or it 

 unduly prolongs its course of vegetation, and so gives 

 more ligneous than fibrous substance. On this account, 

 all sorts of vegetable manures are found to answer so 

 well. The Italian hemp-growers are fond of ploughing-in 

 green crops, such as field-radishes and lupines, as manure 

 for their hemp, and thereby obtain both quantity and 

 quality in their sample. 



ATTER MAXAGEMEOT OF THE CROP. 



If the weather, after sowing, turns out chilly, and the 

 plants themselves do not spring, although weeds do, or if 

 cold and heavy rains cake and harden the surface of the 

 field, a slight weeding and raking may be given. But if, 

 on the contrary, the weather is hot and moist, nothing 

 need be done. The hemp will rise with such rapidity as 

 utterly to choke every nuisance of the kind. As a gene- 

 ral ruie, the hemp crop requires no weeding. "When the 

 plants are about eight or ten inches high, their sexes are 

 already distinguishable from their habit, though they arc 

 not yet in flower. The female plants are taller, and of a 

 darker green at the leading shoot ; the males are shorter, 

 thinner in the stem, and with a greater tendency to a 

 yellowish hue. As all sorts of granivorous birds are pas- 

 sionately fond of hemp-seed, it is indispensable to protect 

 the new-sown fields by means of scarecrows and rattling- 

 mills ; or better, to have them watched by children. A 

 few gunshots fired from time to time in the course of the 

 day will help to put the marauders to flight. It will also 

 be as well to keep an eye on field-mice and other quad- 

 ruped vermin. 



When hemp is sown on land that is moist, or moderate 

 rain has fallen a few days afterwards, it is not long in 

 making its appearance above ground; but if the earth is 



