1851 
THE CULTIVATOR 
99 
Among the many machines for seperating the wood 
from the lint, I think the best yet seen in Kentucky 
consists of a crusher composed of several consecutive 
pairs of fluted rollers, driven by steam or animal power, 
using the hand brake, and using in addition no scutch¬ 
ing apparatus other than a small iron knife, and even 
with these aids a good operator will be unable to prepare 
more than 50 to 60 pounds per day. 
The only way, it appears to me, in which the process 
of water-rotting hemp can be made to work itself into 
favor, and become a regular employment with the hemp 
grower, will be for the consumer to tempt him into the 
practice by paying for a time in this market the prices 
which rule in the Atlantic cities. Receiving thus a bo¬ 
nus of some forty dollars, and a certain market, many 
would be induced to enter upon the business, and prac¬ 
tice would, no doubt, by familiarising the producer with 
the details of preparation, and by suggesting improve¬ 
ments, so far cheapen the cost of production as to over¬ 
come, in a great degree, the reluctance the hemp farmer 
now manifests for this mode of preparation. 
There are two classes of persons who sh.ould abstain 
from water-rotting hemp—those sanguine ones who think 
to increase greatly their income by operating in this high- 
priced article—and those who cultivate to any extent, 
winter grains and other mixed crops, requiring much la¬ 
bor in spring. The first class of persons, if experienced 
in the dew-rotting process, will find in this case, as in 
most others, that it is labor which imparts value to the 
products of agriculture, and that they gain nothing by 
doubling the price of a staple when they cannot produce 
half the quantity. The mixed farmer, too, will find fall 
and spring the only favorable periods for immersing his 
plants—times when the sowing and planting of his crops 
so far engross his time and labor as to render very in¬ 
convenient the filling and emptying of the pools. 
White-Rotting. —In practice, the details of this pro¬ 
cess vary but slightly from those of dew-rotting- Hemp 
intended to be prepared in this way, is permitted to stand 
one entire year in the stack, and is afterwards, about the 
first of December, spread upon grass lands. 
It is quite a misnomer to call this process 11 snow-rot¬ 
ting!” Under no circumstances will the plants, if spread 
to rot during the winter following their growth, become 
ready for the brake without exhibiting on the fiber a 
greater or lesser number of dark blotches, contagiously 
communicated from the decomposing elements of the un¬ 
derlying wood. We must, therefore, impute the beauty of 
color and strength of fiber peculiar to this process, to a 
different agency than extreme cold or snow. It is known 
that nitrogen, with its strong predisposition to decay, is 
present in at least two compounds contained in the hemp 
plant—its nicotina, which, when dissolved in the pool, 
poisons fish—and its volatile alkali, which causes the 
plant to emit so strong an odor. It is also known that 
when these are extracted by immersing the plants in 
water, the cambiose matter uniting the fibres of the bark, 
is decomposed before the slightest decay takes place in 
the woody part of the plant. The woody part, being 
white, tough and elastic, like a willow rod, (a property 
in the stalk which renders the breaking a labor so ardu¬ 
ous,) whilst in the dew-rotting process, before this de¬ 
tachment of the fibres is effected, some of the elemenst 
composing the fluids of circulation have been chang 
ed in their combination, and thus seem to have formed 
an acid, which has, in a greater or less degree, blotched 
the woody part with dark spots, every one of which will 
stain the lint. White-rotting avoids this blotching of the 
wood and bark, mainly, I think, by ridding the p’ant 
of most of its elements predisposed to decay, through 
the agency of heat—-just as the same ends are accom¬ 
plished by water when the plants are immersed. That 
heat has the power to expel these elements, or to render 
them harmless by causing new combinations, will appear 
from considering a fact familiar to all experienced hemp- 
growers, which is this: it often happens that a bundle 
of hemp spread down the autumn after the plants were 
grown, will be taken up in January, with the top portion 
of the plants, which occupied the center of the stack 
when in bulk, of a bright buff color, whilst the lower 
portions of the plants in the same bundle are dark color¬ 
ed and ready for the brake. Now, if these bright por¬ 
tions be cut off from the other parts of the bundle, and 
exposed again to the rains and frosts, in time a rot is ef¬ 
fected,and an article closely resembling water-rotted hemp 
is produced. In this case there is not the remotest doubt 
that the character of the bright portions of such bun¬ 
dles has been changed by the great heat generated in 
the stack, by bulking the bundles while the leaves were 
yet too damp. So it is with hemp, I think, kept in bulk 
more than one pear. Time sets free a large portion of 
what is volatile, and the heat generated, whilst the mass* 
is going through a sweat, and sublimes or changes much 
of what remains. Certain it is, that the market value 
of this article is greatly above that of dew-rotted hemp, 
and it remains to be determined whether a management 
could not be devised increasing still more this value. 
This process is attended in practice with but one seri¬ 
ous objection, which is, that the additional time requir¬ 
ed to detach the fibres from the wood, in consequence 
of the indestructibility resulting from its changed cha¬ 
racter, often brings round the spring of the year before 
it is ready for the brake; in which event it becomes ne¬ 
cessary to stack over and brake the following winter— 
for not only would breaking at that season interfere with 
the growing crop, but it is, itself, without a dry house, 
almost a work of impossibility. When the mean tem¬ 
perature of the day rises above the mean annual tempe¬ 
rature of the earth, the dew falls freely, so that every 
day is like a rainy day in winter—unfit for breaking hemp. 
L. Young. Louisville , Ky., Jan. 1851. 
Pasture Land. —Every milch cow robs the laud an¬ 
nually of as much phosphate of lime, (bone forming ma¬ 
terial,) as is contained in eighty pounds of bone dust. 
From this cause the Cheshire pastures became greatly de¬ 
teriorated, but were restored to their former fertility by 
being well boned. Land continually depastured, must 
be fed regularly with phosphates—by the application of 
bones, night soil, &c. Some descriptions of lime con¬ 
tain phosphates in sufficient quantity, but not all. 
The Upas Tree. —We learn that a tree of this spe. 
cies has been brought from Java by Lieut. Marchand, 
of the Sloop of War St. Mary’s, and has been presented 
to the National Institute, and is placed in the conserva¬ 
tory of that Institution at Washington. This is the tree, 
which, under the name of the u Bohon Upas,” was for¬ 
merly represented to possess such poisonous qualities 
that animals could not approach it, nor birds. 
