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260 WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
rows so that all may have ample room for development. One- 
half the plants will bear only staminate flowers, and are called 
male plants. These can be distinguished when half grown, 
and may be removed, leaving one to three or four female 
plants. All the male plants may be cut or pulled out as soon 
as they have shed their pollen and begun to turn yellow: their 
fibre, which is nearly as valuable as that on plants grown ex¬ 
clusively for the lint, can be saved. The female plants con¬ 
tinue green, and require about three weeks more to perfect 
their seeds, when they must be carefully cut or pulled, and set 
in shocks to dry. The seeds scatter easily, and it must be 
carefully handled, especially when dry. The seed crop could 
also be saved by cutting off the seed branches with a knife, 
and conveying them to the drying house in large tight boxes 
or baskets, as hops are gathered. The stalks could then be 
cut, cured and rotted as the other plants are for the fibre on 
them, which is worth about three-fourths as much as that upon 
the fibre-grown plants. 
The seeds contain as large a proportion of oil as flax seeds, 
and the oil is expressed in the same manner, and used for the 
same purposes. The oil cake is equally good food for cattle 
with the linseed cake. Hemp has been known to yield as high 
as forty-five bushels of seed to the acre, and has been recom¬ 
mended as a profitable crop, when grown for the seed alone. 
Harvesting the Crop.— Hemp was formerly pulled by 
hand, but this was a slow and laborious task, and there was 
danger that the different parts of the field would damage dur¬ 
ing the period occupied in the harvest. Recourse has since 
been had to cutting it at or near the ground with heavy knives, 
reaping hooks or scythes. This mode greatly expedites the 
harvest. Of late years, a cradle with a short scythe and stout 
fingers so spread as to gather and hold the tali hemp has been 
used. Cutting the hemp, though a great improvement on pull¬ 
ing, is heavy and hard work and requires great care, especially 
when the cradle is used, as it is necessary to cut all close to 
the ground, otherwise some of the best fibre will be lost. It 
