HEMP AND FLAX. 327 



good hand will do one stone and a half in a day. The 

 spinners earn from 4d. to 8d. a day. 



Mr. Rainbeard, Governor of the House of Industry 

 of Forehoe, cultivates hemp every year, to supply a part 

 of wliat is manufadlured in the house ; and in the w^ater- 

 ing of it, has a contrivance which 1 do not remember see- 

 ing elsewhere, by means of which it is deposited in the 

 pit, without any necessity of a single person being wet, 

 a pretence in common for making the farmer's tap bleed 

 pretty freely. The pond is an old marie pit, with a re- 

 gular slope from one side (where the hemp is prepared) to 

 the depth of eight feet on the other side : on the slope 

 above the water, the hemp is buik into a square stack, 

 upon a frame of timber, of such a height as will float and 

 bear a man without wetting his feet : this is slid down 

 upon the frame into the water, and when floating, drawn 

 away, a person on the opposite bank drawing the floating 

 stack to the spot where it is to be sunk, and on which it is 

 built to the requisite weight. 



He finds it does soonest at bottom, and would not ob- 

 je6l to sixteen feet depth of water. 



By means of this very useful contrivance, he can put 

 in a waggon-load in an hour. 



The sheaves are taken out in the coinmon manner, 

 sheaf by sheaf: here wants a further improvement, easy 

 to be eflfedted. 



In the parish of Wyndham, a farmer had, about seven 

 years ago, some land (four acres and a half), dunged and 

 ploughed, and designed ior fallow for wheat; Mr. Rain- 

 beard seeing the field, advised him to sow hemp before 

 taking wheat, which he did, on one acre and a half; he 

 bought the hemp at 81. 83. an acre, as it stood, and the far- 

 mer sowed the whole with wheat ; and the crop was so 

 much cleaner and better after the hemp than after the tA- 



Y 4 low. 



