SOFT HEMP 13 



An ideal hemp soil must be rich in available fertilizing 

 elements, especially nitrogen and potash, to ensure a rapid 

 growth ; deep and sufficiently loose in texture, to permit the 

 development of the roots, and also to allow good drainage ; 

 sufficiently friable, to make a good, mellow seed-bed, so as to 

 insure uniform germination of the seed, yet with clay enough 

 to give it a good body and firm texture. A good supply of 

 decayed vegetable and animal matter is necessary, not only to 

 furnish plant food, but to retain moisture. Very few crops 

 require as much water as hemp, yet it cannot stand surface 

 water about the roots. In soils of a loamy character, where 

 the general water level is within 10 ft. of the surface, there is 

 little danger of injury from drought after the first thirty days, 

 during which the roots will establish themselves. 



Although in Kentucky hemp sometimes follows hemp on 

 the same land for ten or twelve years, if the stalks- are retted 

 on the same land, and fertilizers applied to make up for the 

 fertility taken off by the crops, no serious injury results. It 

 is, however, doubtless the better practice to cultivate a series 

 of crops in rotation. A common five-year rotation is clover, 

 hemp, corn, wheat, clover. Hemp follows clover whenever 

 this is practicable. The stubble and roots of the clover, rich 

 in stored up nitrogen, furnish the desired fertilizing elements 

 well distributed, and also the decaying matter necessary for 

 the development of a rapid growing crop like hemp in soils 

 long under cultivation. 



In California and Nebraska no crop rotation is practised for 

 hemp, and on the deep, rich prairie soils of Nebraska, where 

 there seems to be an almost inexhaustible supply of decaying 

 vegetable matter, it is claimed that the best results are 

 obtained where hemp follows hemp through a long series of 

 years. Hemp prevents the growth of weeds and other vegeta- 

 tion which would be found on such soils in most other crops, 

 or after other crops are laid by, and its cultivation also seems 

 to make the soil more uniform in character. 



