206 



ON HEMP. 



watering, and is not easily prejudiced by leaving it therein a day 

 anore or less. 



The Paut requires a fortnight, and even twenty days does it no 

 harm : but the Sunn is more delicate ; it is dangerous to exceed 

 three days and three nights by only five or six hours. 



The general practice is to set the plant upright in the water, 

 immersed about one-third only from the bottom, for one day, be- 

 fore the three days' complete immersion. 



\0th August. — In confirmation of the inefBcacy of drying the 

 plant before steeping, on the 4th instant I obtained a small bundle 

 of ripe Sunn, which I dried till the 6th. On that day, at gun-fire, 

 I immersed it in water. On the 8th I took it out, to try if the fibre 

 would separate from the reed, but found it impracticable. On the 

 9th I tried it again, but it would not do. On the 10th (this morn- 

 ing), I found the fibre to separate from the reed, but not from itself; 

 at the same time that it was quite perished . 



\&th August. — The impracticability of reeding the plant after 

 steeping no more than forty hours is again confirmed ; and the 

 drying the plant, so contrary to the first authorities, is again proved 

 to be worse than nugatory, creating delay where expedition is re- 

 quired. 



The experiment hath verified, that the Sunn requires a far 

 more delicate management, and a much nicer degree of attention, 

 than the real Hemp-plant : five or six hours only too long in the 

 water, and all is lost. The greatest care, then, must be taken, that 

 no more plants be immersed in the water at one time, than can be 



readily 



