140 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



luid honorable distinction as intellectual cultiviitors, on a scale however small — satisfied with 

 homely and wholesome fare — despising the honors to be won by the arts of the demagogue, 

 and looking, for happiness and charact<ir, to intellectual enjoyment and a life of virtue and 

 usefulness. [^Ed. Farm. Lib 



INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES OF THE WEST. 



HEMP CULTURE. 



To the suggestion of Mr. Johnson, (son of our old and lamented friend, the late Hon. 

 F. Johnson, of Kentucky,) of the distinguished firm of Johnson & Fellows, commission- 

 house in New-Orleans, we wish to make acknowledgments for putting us in communication 

 with the wi-iter of the following — than whom no man iu the Union is better infoiined on the 

 hemp industry of the country. 



This is another of resources for the benefit of our readers, developed by a very short, but 

 most agreeable sojourn in the South last spiiiig. 



John S. Skinnek, Esq. Louisville, August 1, 1846. 



Sir: I have received your letter of the 24th ultimo. I will now, with much 

 pleasure, reply to a portion of its contents, and will hereafter communicate to you 

 such facts, in relation to the hemp industry of our country, as I may deem of suf- 

 ticient interest for record in the pages of The Farmers' Library. 



I can now assert, without the shadow of a doubt, that the hemp trade has been 

 brought to perfection. This has been done by the beautiful combination, in one 

 machine, of the brake, the scutcher, and the heckle ; for whioli combination we 

 are indebted to the joint ingenuity of Dr. Leavitt and Messrs. Crocker and Hawes 

 of this city. 



I have been a daily inspector of tlie operations of the machine for the past 

 week, and though I have been engaged for the last four years in the construction 

 of a great variety of hemp machines, yet I am compelled to acknowledge that 

 this is the only one that approaches even toward a complete machine. We fmd 

 no difliculty in breaking, cleaning, and heckling iinrotted or rotted hemp on the 

 same machine. The operation is performed with great expedition, and without 

 converting an undue proportion of the hbre into tow ; indeed, I am convinced that 

 there will be much less tow made by the machine than is usually made by the 

 hand-brake. This machine is equally well adapted to flax, rotted or unrotted, as 

 to hemp. 



Knowing now that the machine has been brought into existence for the rapid 

 breaking and cleaning of unrotted hemp, let us for a moment enter into some 

 speculations in relation to that description of hemp, and its adaptation to naval 

 purposes. An experiment was made many years ago in rigging the ship I^orth 

 Carolina with hemp in its unrotted condition. On her return, after an absence 

 of three years, her rigging was examined, and found to be in a state of decay — 

 produced, as was stated, by a fermentation of the hemp. This examination was 

 considered as conclusive, and no consideration was ever after given to unrotted 

 hemp, so far as the INavy Department was concerned. 



I am aware that such would be the fate of all hemp, so manufactured, of an 

 unprepared article. Its decay was caused by fermentation, and fermentation is 

 now looked on as the beginning of decay ; hence all American water-rotted hemp 

 has commenced its decay before it has been spun into cordage — it being impossi- 

 ble to prepare it for the hand-trade without carrying it through the process of 

 fermentation. 



My object has been (and T am sure that it has been attained) to decompose the 

 fermenting agent wliile the hemp is in its unmanufactured form ; and, doing so, 

 surely fermentation cannot ensue. 



There is but one element in vegetable matter that can produce fermentation, 

 and that is nitrogen; that can be evolved by the application of a high tenipera- 



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