328 THE HEMP CROP. 



get drunk with, and gave the name of dacha to it. To 

 use the elegant language of Endlicher, " Emollitum 

 exhilarat animum, impotentibus desideriis tristem 

 stultam Icetitiam provocat, et jucundissima somniorum 

 conciliat phantasmata." With us, as in other similar 

 climates, such secretions, though the results of the natural 

 functions of the plant growing under its natural conditions, 

 rarely are formed ; and hemp may be fairly taken as an 

 example of the inutility of attempting to cultivate profit- 

 ably, except under very special circumstances, the produce 

 of climates materially different from our own. It has 

 been surmised that the hemp of India is a different species 

 from that cultivated in Europe. Such, however, is not 

 the case. The only difference between them is that which 

 results from the effects of climate and soil on their con- 

 tinuous cultivation. 



Botanically, the hemp belongs to the natural order 

 URTICE^E Nettleworts from which, however, it has been 

 separated by Endlicher and other botanists, and formed 

 into a sub-order, termed CANNABINE^E, which consists only 

 of two genera hemp and hops both of which enter 

 into cultivation in this country as farm crops. There is 

 only one species of hemp the Gannabis sativa an erect- 

 growing plant, attaining the height of 5 or 6 feet in this 

 country, but in more favourable climates frequently 

 doubling these dimensions. Indeed, Thaer, 1 on the 

 authority of Crud, states that in favourable soils it is 

 frequently seen growing to the height of 15 and 18 feet. 

 Hairs are scattered somewhat sparingly over its surface, 

 from which the peculiar resinous substance already alluded 

 to exudes. The leaves are completely divided into five 

 narrow, taper-pointed, rough, serrated fingers or lobes. 

 The most marked feature in the plant, in an agricultural 

 point of view, is that it is dioecious, some plants being 



1 Yon Thaer, Princwes Raisonnecs d'Agri., tome x. p. 289. 



