224 ON HEMP. 



toughness and suppleness are the qualities wanted in Hemp. It 

 does not appear from the French Authors, that they avail themselves 

 of this information, or perhaps their writers with-hold it as a secret, 

 though it may be practised and promulgated among themselves. 

 Savary, though he says but little on Hemp, mentions sweating as 

 necessary ; and, on trial, it may perhaps be found, that the Livonians 

 are not only ingenious, but ingenuous in declaring the quality to 

 depend on this operation being well or ill performed. 



Now the method practised by the Natives of this country, beats 

 both the French and Russian for facility and expedition. They 

 divest the reed from its fibre immediately from steeping without 

 drying, by which they avoid the kiln and the oven*; which upon 

 every principle of sound reasoning, deduced from all that has been 

 laid down by the Societies, has obtained more, not to say solely, for 

 the more readily getting rid of the reed, than for the benefit of the 

 fibre, to which it should seem even prejudicial. The celerity with 

 which the Natives get through this business is highly in favour of 

 the strength of the fibre and of their mode of practice ; and should 

 sweating be found to answer, it , will be found much more con- 

 genial to its execution than the doing it while the fibre be yet on 

 the reed. 



The Natives say, that to dry the plant on taking it out of the 

 water, before separating the fibre from the reed, will occasion, a 

 much greater loss in tow; so that they never practice this method 



but 



* From the heat of the climate I should suppose they do not need either. R. W. 



