PRACTICAL PAPERS—HEMP CULTURE. 
259 
Northern Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota, where the 
dent corn grows, will become renowned as the true hemp region 
of the American continent. 
Preparation of the Soil. —On this head nothing more 
need be said, except that the ground should be prepared as for 
oats, the soil being thoroughly mellowed, so that the plants may 
grow as evenly as possible. Unless the weeds start first and 
become considerably advanced the hemp will rise above them, 
maintain its ascendency, and kill out all other growth. Some 
agriculturists have proposed to use hemp as a crop in the rota* 
tion to clean foul land of its weeds, and as a preparation for 
other crops. Land can scarcely be too rich for hemp, and yet a 
profitable crop may be grown on poor soil. 
Seeding.— Some sow from two, to two and a half bushels 
of good, fresh seed to the acre; but L. I. Bradford, President 
State Agricultural Society, Kentucky, in 1863, says “broad-cast 
your seed evenly, at the rate of fifty pounds of seed per acre 
minimum, or even up to seventy pounds as the maximum 
quantity, varying with the strength of the land; the object 
being to produce as thick a growth of plants as the land will 
sustain. If the plants set too thin, on rich soil the stalks will 
grow too coarse, producing a coarse and inferior lint; on the 
contrary, if seeded too thick, the growth will prove so short as 
to materially affect the value of the crop.” After the seeds 
are sown, by hand or the broadcast seeder, the roller should 
follow to make the surface as even as possible for the hemp- 
hook, cradle or reaper in gathering the crop. The plants should 
stand so thick, that all may run up their entire length -without 
branches. Such plants give long, straight rods, with even, un¬ 
divided fibre; but when they have abundant room they branch 
at almost every leaf, and the fibre is short and broken, or in¬ 
jured at each joint. 
Raising Seed. —The plants for this purpose should be 
grown on rich land, in drills two and a half or three feet apart, 
and tended as a hoed crop ; they should be thinned out in the 
