ON HEMP. 



119 



off clear, it must be chopped off with an iron instrument. All this 

 must be done over a cloth, or on a spot of ground in the field, well 

 levelled and smoothed, to avoid losing any of the seed : and it is 

 proposed, and said to be successful, to leave the seed abroad, 

 covered with the leaves, &c. to preserve it from birds, that it may 

 heat and be threshed in the field, and the leaves and chaff strewed 

 on the land. This certainly saves trouble, and is practised in many 

 places ; but it seems to me to be slovenly, and I should rather take 

 it home to a barn : but I would certainly burn all the roots, and 

 such parts as are too hard to rot easily, and strew the ashes, as well 

 as the leaves, and such other parts as will easily rot, upon the 

 ground ; as these matters are reckoned to go half-way towards 

 manuring the land for the next year's crop. Abbe Brulles. 



Some are of opinion, that, by putting the clusters which con- 

 tain the Hemp-seed to heat and sweat, the quality is improved ; as 

 many of those seeds which would otherwise wither and die away, 

 may thus arrive at perfection. This, however, seems to be very 

 •problematical, as there are no experiments which shew that seeds, 

 when separated from the vegetable producing them, have any 

 power to meliorate themselves. ■> Encyclopedia Britannica. 



At Haxey, in Lincolnshire, the seed, when dried, is threshed 

 on a cloth in the field. Lincolnshire Report. 



For 



