No. 42. 



Work for August. 



369 



becoming loose, besides the difficulty, trouble, 

 and expense of binding over again your bun- 

 dles when wet and heavy. When you are 

 ready to put your liemp into water, say about 

 the hrst of October, (which should always be 

 in some river, or brook, where the water 

 changes often, and not in a pond, or any stag- 

 nant water ; this will become foul and putrid, 

 and the stench so great that few persons can 

 be found to draw your hemp,) you may thresh 

 oft' the seed with a tlail, as in tiax, or hold a 

 bundle with one hand across a flax, or hemp- 

 brake, and whip out the seed with a hand- 

 staflf", upon a tight floor: the seed is valuable 

 for the same purposes as your flax-seed, either 

 for the home consumption, or a foreign mar- 

 ket. The rotting of your hemp is also criti- 

 cal, like your flax, and must be watched and 

 tried, when dried, in the same manner. If 

 you draw your hemp from the water in Oc- 

 tober, or even in November, and the weather 

 proves warm, it will over-rot before it can 

 dry in the bundle ; you must spread and dry 

 it as soon as possible, and house it for the win- 

 ter; but if the weather should be cold, you 

 may set up your hemp across your fences; 

 and if it gets dry before the frosts of winter 

 set in, house it as before ; if not, and your 

 bundles become frozen, you may let them 

 stand over the winter, and house and dress in 

 March, or dress from the field as they stand. 

 The difference between the dressing of your 

 hemp and flax, is this ; your hemp-brake must 

 be about twice the size of your flax-brake in 

 all its proportions, for the first breaking ; and 

 then if it is run through a flax-brake for a se- 

 cond braking, it will greatly expedite the 

 swingling. Your swingling-knife must be 

 about half the length of the flax-knife ; the 

 swingling-board about 4 or 5 feet high. The 

 shives must be separated from the liemp by 

 stroking gently with your knife instead of 

 whipping with a full stroke, as in flax, and 

 by gently shaking the hemp, between the 

 strokes, and all without the hatchel, as in 

 flax. There is a great slight in dressing 

 hemp; an expert hand will swingle clean 

 about lUOlbs. per day. When your hemp is 

 dressed, it must be bound up in bunches of 

 20 or SOlbs. each, and then it is ready for 

 market. 



Hemp is a great exhauster of soil ; requires 

 the strongest lands and richest manures, in 

 great quantity; requires also, much labor, 

 and is, of course, an unprofitable crop in our 

 countiy. In time of war it has proved profit- 

 able, and may become so again ; of course its 

 mode of culture should be correctly under- 

 stood. Your hemp, as well as flax grounds, 

 should be turned up into ridges in autumn; 

 the ridges should be levelled with the plough 

 in the spring, as soon as the frost will admit; 

 your ground then dressed with 10, 15, or 20 



loads of your best manures, well spread and 

 covered with the plough, your furrows 

 smoothed gently with the harrow, and your 

 seed, say from 2 to 3 bushels to the acre, sown 

 early in May, and covered lightly with the 

 harrow. If you sow on the furrows, and co- 

 ver deep with the harrow, or sow on a stiflf 

 soil, your hemp will pull very hard. 



SUMMER FALLOWING. 



This is one of the most important branches 

 of good farming, and upon which has arisen 

 a great variety of opinion and practice. Some 

 farmers are of opinion that the ploughings for 

 a summer fallow cannot be too frequent, and 

 that a\\ fallow crops are injurious to the land, 

 and particularly to the succeeding crops. 

 Others consider all naked fallows as a waste 

 of expense without any adequate benefit, and 

 insist upon some fallow crops, either of tur- 

 neps, to be fed ofl^ by sheep, or of potatoes, to 

 be dug for stock, or of buckwheat, or clover, 

 to be ploughed in as a fertilizing crop. Both 

 probably are in an error, and run into the op- 

 posite extremes. A strong stiff" clay, or a 

 hard gravelly soil, cannot be ploughed too 

 often for a fallow ; but a loose sandy soil may 

 be greatly injured by too frequent ploughings. 

 The latter may be tilled to advantage with a 

 potato fallow; and the former by a turnep 

 fallow, to be fed off by sheep ; or afler several 

 ploughings, with the fertilizing fallows of 

 buckwheat, ploughed in : but a rough stony 

 soil cannot be tilled with a fallow crop to ad- 

 vantage ; this land, and perhaps this only, re- 

 quires a naked summer fallow. The great 

 advantages to be derived from a summer fal- 

 low are these : 



1. Frequent ploughings destroy the herb- 

 age upon the fallows, and the roots and seeds 

 of herbage, and thus render the grounds clean 

 for the following crops. 



2. This is greatly promoted by a potato 

 fallow, both in hoeing and digging, 



3. The plough renders the earth light and 

 mellow, to receive the seed when sown, and 

 to admit the extension of the roots of the 

 grain when it vegetates. 



4. At each ploughing it changes the soil, 

 and exposes a new surface to receive the 

 benefits of the sun, air, rains, and dews with 

 their fertilizing powers. 



5. It renders the earth light and pervious 

 for the admission of the sun, air, rains, and 

 dews, and opens a free circulation for them 

 to the roots of the grain, (or plants, whatever,) 

 and thus they impart their fertilizing proper- 

 ties to the vital principles of the crop you 

 cultivate. 



6. The green fallow, when ploughed in, as 

 well as the potato fallow, greatly promote 

 this benefit by meliorating the soil. Upon 

 this principle the plough, with the fertilizing 



