29 



HEMP, 



NATURE OF THE SOIL BEST SUITED TO ITS GROWTH. 



Most sorts of soil are or may be made fit with good manuring, 

 to sow Hemp upon. The best is accounted to be a warm sandy 

 ground mixed with earth ; and of this sort of earth, fit places to 

 sow Hemp on are old meadows grown over with moss ; old stack- 

 yards ; and places kept in the winter for the lair of sheep or cattle. 

 If your ground is something barren, you may enrich it, as you do 

 all other sorts of ground. 



England's Improvement. 



Hemp is always sown in a deep, moist, rich soil, such as that 

 of Holland, Lincolnshire, and the fens of the Isle of Ely, where 

 it is cultivated to great advantage, as it might be in many other 

 parts of England, where there is the like soil ; but it will not thrive 

 on cold clay or stiff cold land. It is esteemed very good to destroy 

 weeds, which is no other way effected but by robbing them of their 

 nourishment ; for Hemp greatly impoverishes the ground, so that 

 the crop should not be repeated on the same land. It may, how- 

 ever, be grown on the same land for many years, by manuring an- 

 nually. If it stands for seed, it is on all hands acknowledged to be 

 an exhausting crop ; but if it be cut without seed, it is, on the 

 contrary, supposed by many to improve the land, and to be an ex- 

 cellent preparation for wheat. 



Miller's Gardcn-erf Dictionary. 



