326 THE HEMP CROP. 



that of flax. Although it was known to the ancients, it 

 does not appear that they were acquainted with its pro- 

 perties as a fibre-producing plant. Columella tells us 

 that it delights to grow in a fat, dunged soil, and in a 

 watery soil, or plain, and moist, and deeply digged. 

 Dioscorides and Galen describe the plant, and detail its 

 various medicinal uses. Herodotus also speaks of the 

 plant as having been seen by him growing wild in 

 Scythia (North Danubian provinces) when he visited 

 that country. Pliny, who speaks of the plant in his 

 Natural History, says not a word of this property, 

 but contents himself with extolling the virtues of its 

 stem, leaves, and roots. In fact, what some writers 

 on Roman antiquities remark, that the hemp necessary 

 for the use of war was all stored up in two cities of the 

 western empire, Ravenna and Vienna, under the direction 

 of the two procurators, called procuratores linificii, 

 must be understood evidently as referring to flax, and 

 not to hemp. 



Hemp is supposed to be originally a native of the 

 warmer parts of Asia, its wild locality extending 

 from Syria to the mountains of India, in all of which 

 districts ifc is met with at the present day in a natural 

 state. Roxburgh found it growing wild in great abun- 

 dance among the mountainous districts of North India, 

 and also as a common plant in the gardens of the natives 

 of that part of Asia. It is now to be met with, both in a 

 wild and in a cultivated state, largely distributed over 

 the milder climates of Europe, in most of which countries 

 it is grown both for its fibre and for its seeds. In eastern 

 countries the plant is valued not only for its fibre and for 

 its seed, but a third product is obtained from it in the 

 shape of an intoxicating drink. The leaves are stripped 

 off the stems, and are subjected to a slight fermentative 

 action, as in the preparation of tobacco. They are then 



