The New Hampshire Gazette And Historical Chronicle

Upon HEMP, continued:

Of the sowing of HEMP.

We will suppose the winter dressings to be past, and come to spring, that is the season for sowing this valuable crop.

Let the farmer take care that no pet good seed. If he err in this respect, all his labour will be fruitless. Let him choose such as is fresh, firm and bright; and try it by rubbing it well between his hands. If it bear this without breaking, and look the finer and clearer for it, 'tis good, but if it appear dusty and broken it is old and damaged.

Good seed being chosen, the quantity is to be determined, according to the method proposed for raising it. If by the common husbandry three bushels are to be allowed to every acre: if the drill and horsehoeing be followed; which is much better, a bushel and half of seed to an acre is sufficient.

The seed being ready and the ground dressed, the last operation must be preparing it for the seed; and this must be very carefully done. The first week in April is the right time for sowing hemp, therefore let him begin his last dressing accordingly. If the season be unfavourable, the sowing may be deferred a week, ten days, or even a fortnight without damage, but 'tis best when it can be done at the time just named.

When the farmer gives the land the last dressing, he must make it fine and level as the border of a garden; hemp-seed is tender, it will not grow unless laid in very regularly. It requires but a light covering, and if it is buried deeper, it never will come up. If any clods be left in the ground, they will fall over some of the seeds, and such will perish. I have seen the bad effects of carelessness in this article, and therefore caution the farmer the more strictly; in the common way of sowing not a third of his plants would come up; and one half of those will rise irregularly, and getting bad habits by twisting in their first shooting, will never come to any thing considerable afterwards. When the land is of a sufficient fineness, let a careful seedsman go over it with the seed, and spread it regularly over the ground, by single cast, as evenly and equally as he can. As soon as this is done, let the field be harrowed very lightly, and well defended from birds. There is no seed of which small birds are so fond as hemp: it is large and conspicuous, so that it attracts their eye, and it is to be slightly covered, so that they can easily get at it. Boys must be set to watch, and all imaginable care taken of it for several days after sowing, otherwise the farmer, with all his former cautions, will have but a poor account.

This is the method of sowing hemp in the common way of husbandry: and to what has been already laid down, we have only one caution to add, which is that the farmer who expects a good crop, do not follow the practice of those who do nothing to their land till they are just going to sow. There are those who content themselves with giving it one plowing in the spring for hemp: but by what I have seen they content themselves also with a poor harvest. Hemp in its nature requires a land better dressed than almost any other seed.

We are now to name the way of raising hemp in the horse hoeing method, which we have before observed is vastly preferable to the other. The preparation of the ground must be the same as in the other method, and the seed must be planted in double rows, with ten inch partitions, and with intervals just broad enough for the passage of the hoe plow. The seed must be planted very shallow. Hemp is a large plant, therefore it must not be set in treble rows, for the middle one wanting air would come to nothing. It succeeds very well in a single row; but experience shews, that in the double, with this interval, the plants grow as well, and the profit is much larger. This is the method of cultivating hemp to the greatest benefit.

*By dressing here is meant plowing and harrowing.