jg CORDAGE FIBRES 



a mowing machine the tangled stalks are raked into windrows 

 like hay. In properly built stacks the hemp will remain 

 uninjured for several years ; furthermore, the quality of the 

 fibre is improved, and the processes of breaking and cleaning 

 it are made easier by a kind of sweating or fermentation that 

 the stalks undergo in the stack. 



Nearly all the hemp now produced in the United States 

 is dew-retted. It is spread in long rows on the ground during 

 the autumn and early winter, and exposed to the weather until 

 the bark, including the fibre, readily slips from the inner woody 

 portion. In Nebraska and California the hemp is spread on 

 the stubble fields where it has been cut. In Kentucky it is 

 often spread on closely cropped blue grass pasture land, and is 

 sometimes carted several miles from where it is grown to the 

 retting ground. The time required to dew-ret hemp depends 

 upon the weather, and varies from two to ten weeks. Warm , 

 rainy weather causes the hemp to ret rapidly. When the 

 hemp has been retted sufficiently for the fibre to be readily 

 separated, the stalks are raked together and set up in loose 

 shocks to dry, and then carted to the place where they are to 

 be broken. 



Breaking is the process by which the fibre is separated 

 from the stalk and roughly cleaned. Nearly all the hemp is 

 still broken by hand breaks made of wood, such as have been 

 used for centuries. With one of these an experienced hand can, 

 under favourable circumstances, clean about 250 Ib. of fibre 

 per day. The work is done by alternately crushing or breaking 

 the stalks between the long jaws of the break, and beating 

 them over the break to clear the harl from the fibre. It is a 

 slow process, requiring both strength and skill. 



"A machine consisting of a series of coarsely fluted rollers, 

 followed by a rapidly revolving spiked cylinder, has been in use 

 for some years in California and Nebraska. It breaks the 

 hemp and delivers the fibre in the form of tow. This machine 

 does well enough to extract the fibre from the tangled hemp 

 stalks cut with a mowing machine. 



