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breaking and dressing flax, who having prepared them, assured him, that 
the Istrian flax, cultivated in this country, was by much the finest of the 
three, and was in goodness preferable to any he had seen. 
Hemp (Cannabis) may be traced from the East. The eastern name of 
this plant is Cctnnab. Linnaeus, in his Materia Medica, gives it to the East 
Indies and Japan. Thunberg says it grows here and there in Japan. 
Gmelin thinks it may be a native of Tartary , since it is found there, though 
the Tartars do not cultivate it. In the Species Plantarum it is said to grow 
wild in India ; but in Reichard’s edition of the Systema it is assigned to 
Persia. Father Hennepin found it wild among the Illinois in America. 
The uses of Hemp are well known, as well as its great importance for 
sails and cordage. Exceeding good huckaback is made from it for towels 
and common tablecloths. The low-priced hempen cloths are a general 
wear for husbandmen, servants, and labouring manufacturers. They possess 
this advantage over Irish and other linens, that their colour improves in 
wearing, whilst theirs declines. English Hemp , properly manufactured, 
stands unrivalled in its strength, and is superior, in this respect, to the 
Russian. Considerable quantities of cloth are imported from that country 
for sheeting, merely on account of its strength, for it is coarser at the price 
than other linen. Our hempen cloth , however, is preferable, being 
strengthened from the superior quality of the thread, and at the same time 
whiter in washing. 
The Hemp raised in England is not of so spongy a nature as that we 
have from Russia , and therefore it requires a smaller proportion of tar to 
manufacture it into cordage. Tar being cheaper than hemp, some rope- 
makers prefer foreign hemp to ours, because they can make a greater profit 
in working it. But cordage must certainly be stronger in proportion as 
there is more hemp or less tar in it, provided there be a sufficient quantity 
of the latter to unite the fibres. An oil is extracted from the seed. 
Tea (Thea) is thought by some capable of being naturalized to our 
climate. It is generally believed, although there are many varieties, that 
the tea is but of one species, and that the differences are the production of 
soil, climate, and a particular mode of preparation. The two obvious 
distinctions of green and black teas naturally suggested the idea, that there 
were two distinct species of this plant; and I believe it was Sir John Hill 
who first attempted at the distinction, remarking that the Green Tea (Thea 9 
Viridis) had six petals, whereas the Black Tea (Thea Bohea) has nine ; 
