CULTURE AND PREPARATION OF HEMP. 153 



up, and stowed up in the field, for the seed to dry and harden, 

 when it is thrashed out in the fields. Most commonly in 

 Dorset the seed is sold on the spot, at from 2s. 6d. to 7s. per Seed, 

 bushel J an acre of hemp produces eighteen or twenty bush- 

 els. In Somerset they have sometimes thirty bushels of seed 

 to the acre. In the sowing season I have known 21s. per 

 bushel paid for seed. When thrashed the hemp is carried to The hemp 

 the nneadows, and spread to ripen as the other, and stacked "i^'asned 

 in the same way, to prepare it for sale 5 it is sent to the 

 houses of the poor in the parishes round which it is raised, 

 to be what is called scaled j that is, each ^sparate stalk of ^'^^^ scaled. 

 hemp is broken in the hand, and the hemp, which is the 

 outside rind or bark, is stripped off; in which state it is sent 

 to market. The scalkig is the employment of old men, v 



women, and children, and of the whole of the labouring 

 family in the evening, as in winter they make but poor wages 

 of it ; and one principal inducement for them to do it is, 

 that the woody parts of the hemp make them a fire, but it 

 soon burns out. Complaints are made of a great deal of the Complaints 

 hemp being often wasted from improper management, and this, 

 want of care in the scaling of it. At the Comptons and 

 Bradford, a good deal more hemp would be raised if they 

 could get it scaled, which they find much difficulty in doing ; 

 and if it were possible to construct a mill that would swingle a mill for the 

 it at a moderate expense, on some such plan as the flax purpose desi- 

 swingling mills, and to afford some encouragement to the 

 erecting them, as well as flax swingling mills, it would encou- 

 rage the growth of both articles materially. An acre of hemp Produce per 

 in a good season will produce 14, 16, or 18 weights, of 32lb. acre, 

 to the weight, in Dorsetshire 3 in Somersetshire they reckon 

 their weight two pounds less, and they sometimes get as much 

 as 35 weights to the acre. The price of the weight of hemp 

 is from 1 6s. to 20s. per weight. The rotation of crops as 



How : 





Rotation of 



On ground well manured. 



Hemp. 



Wheat. 



Barley or Oats. 



Clover with the aboye. 



Wheat. 



crops. 



