HEMP. c 2'2 1 



As a Phoenician colony settled there, it is 

 probable that these people, so celebrated for 

 their achievements in navigation, were the 

 first who discovered the use of hemp in form- 

 ing cables and tackle for their ships. They 

 were in ancient times what the Britons are at 

 present. Isaiah calls their country " the 

 merchant city, the mart of nations, whose 

 merchants are princes, whose traffickers are 

 the honourables of the earth." 



Pliny states, that the hemp which grew in 

 some parts of Italy, and near Rosea in the 

 Sabines' country, grew as high as shrubs ; 

 that it originally grew there in the very 

 woods, without even sowing. It appears by 

 the account of this author, that the Romans 

 gathered the seed before the stalks, as lie 

 says the seed should be sown in February, 

 and that the thicker it is sown, the finer the 

 hemp grows. When the seed ripened in the 

 autumn, it was rubbed out and dried in the 

 sun, the wind, or in smoke, and the stalks 

 were not plucked out of the earth, until after 

 the vintage. " It is then," continues he, 

 " the work of the husbandman to peel and 

 cleanse it, which these people do in the 

 evening by candle-light." It appears to have 

 been diligently sorted ; as this great observer 



