24
American Hemp Culture Verbatim
extracted from "Fiber Wars" by David P. West,
in
Hemp Today, E. Rosenthal, ed.
"In 1824, domestic hemp
was pitted against Russian hemp by rigging the USS Constitution on one side with American
and the other with Russian grown hemp, 'and after being thus worn for nearly a year, it
was found, on examination, that the Russian rope, in every instance, after being much
worn, looked better and wore more equally and evenly than the American.' But the
commander said, 'the difference between them was not so great as to warrant a declaration
that the proof was conclusive in favor of the Russian....'"
Dodge, C. A. 1896.
A report on the culture of hemp and jute in the United States. USDA Office of
Fiber Investigations. Report No. 8. p.15.
"The Federal Government
in 1841 authorized a bounty, which allowed for the payment of not more than $280 per ton
for American water-retted hemp, provided it was suitable for naval cordage. Many of
the planters prepared large pools and water-retted the hemp they produced. But the
work was so hard on Negroes that the practice was abandoned. Many Negroes died of
pneumonia contracted from working in the hemp-pools in the winter, and the mortality
became so great among hemp hands that the increase in value of the hemp did not equal the
loss in Negroes."
Bidwell, P. W. and J. I.
Falconer. 1941. History of Agriculture in the Northern United States:
1620-1860. Carnegie Inst. Washington, D.C. p.365.
"There is no reason why
hemp culture should not extend over a dozen States and the product used in manufactures
which now employ thousands of tons of imported fibers."
Dodge, C. A. 1890.
The Hemp Industry. USDA Division of Statistics 1: 66.
"Several [varieties of
hemp] are grown in this country, that cultivated in Kentucky and having a hollow stem,
being the most common. China hemp, with slender stems, growing very erect, has a
wide range of culture. Smyrna hemp is adapted to cultivation over a still wider
range and Japanese hemp is beginning to be cultivated, particularly in California, where
it reaches a height of 15 feet. Russian and Italian seed have been experimented
with, but the former produces a short stalk, while the latter only grows to a medium
height. A small quantity of Piedmontese hemp seed from Italy was distributed by the
Department in 1893, having been received through the Chicago Exposition...."
Dodge, C. A. 1896.
A report on the culture of hemp and jute in the United States. USDA Office of
Fiber Investigations. Report No. 8. p.7.
"In Nebraska, where the
[hemp] industry is being established, a new and important step has been taken in cutting
the crop with an ordinary mowing machine. A simple attachment which bends the stalks
over in the direction in which the machine is going facilitates the cutting... The
cost of cutting hemp in this manner is 50 cents per acre, as compared with $3 to $4 per
acre, the rates paid for cutting by hand in Kentucky."
USDA. 1902.
USDA. Yearbk of Agric. p. 23.
"The most important fact
to be recorded in connection with the hemp industry during the past year is the successful
operation of a machine brake in the fields of Kentucky. This machine breaks the
retted stalks and cleans the fiber, producing clean, straight fiber equal to the best
grades prepared on hand brakes, and it has a capacity of 1000 pounds or more of clean
fiber per hour. So far as we have any record, this is the first machine having
sufficient capacity to be commercially practical that has cleaned bast fiber in an
entirely satisfactory manner."
USDA. 1905 Report
of Office of Fiber Investigations. Bureau of Plant Industry. p. 145.
"When the work with hemp
was begun in Wisconsin, there were no satisfactory machines for harvesting, spreading,
binding, or breaking. All of these processes were performed by hand. Due to
such methods, the hemp industry in the United States had all but disappeared. As it
was realized from the very beginning of the work in Wisconsin that no permanent progress
could be made so long as it was necessary to depend upon hand labor, immediate attention
was given to solving the problem of power machinery. Nearly every kind of hemp
machine was studied and tested. The obstacles were great, but through the
cooperation of experienced hemp men and one large harvesting machinery company, this
problem has been nearly solved. The hemp crop can now be handled entirely by
machinery."
Wright, Andrew.
1918. Wisconsin's Hemp Industry. Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment
Station Bulletin # 293. p.5.
"The organized hemp
growers of Wisconsin, working in cooperation with the field agent of fiber investigations
[Andrew Wright], have so improved the quality and standardized the grades of hemp fiber
produced there that it has found a market even in dull times. The hemp acreage in
that State has been kept up, although there has been a reduction in every other
hemp-producing area throughout the world."
USDA. 1921.
Annual Report of the Department of Agriculture: Hemp. p. 46.
"The crop of hempseed
last fall, estimated at about 45,000 bushels, is the largest produced in the United States
since 1859. A very large proportion of it was from improved strains developed by
this bureau in the hempseed selection plats at Arlington and Yarrow Farms."
USDA. Bureau of
Plant Industry. 1917. Report of the Chief. p. 12.
"Early maturing
varieties, chiefly of Italian origin, are being grown at Madison, Wisconsin, in
cooperation with the Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station. This is the third
year of selection for some varieties, and the results give promise of the successful
production in that State of seed of hemp fully equal to the Ferrara of northern
Italy."
USDA. Bureau of
Plant Industry. 1918. Report of the Chief. p. 28.
"The second-generation
hybrid Ferramington, combining the height and long internodes of Kymington with the
earliness and heavy seed yield of Ferrara, gives promise of a good fiber type of hemp that
may ripen seed as far north as Wisconsin."
USDA. Bureau of
Plant Industry. 1919. Report of the Chief. p. 21.
"The work of breeding
improved strains of hemp is being continued at Arlington Farm, Va., and all previous
records were broken in the selection plats of 1919. The three best strains,
Kymington, Chington and Tochimington, averaged, respectively, 14 feet 11 inches, 15 feet 5
inches, and 15 feet 9 inches, while the tallest individual plant was 19 feet. The
improvement by selection is shown not alone in increased height but also in longer
internodes, yielding fiber of better quality and increased quantity."
USDA. Bureau of
Plant Industry. 1920. Report of the Chief. p. 26.
"In 1929 three selected
varieties of hemp (Michigan Early, Chinamington and Simple Leaf) were grown in comparison
with unselected common Kentucky seed near Juneau, Wis. Each of the varieties had
been developed by 10 years or more of selection from the progeny of individual plants.
The yields of fiber per acre were as follows: Simple Leaf, 360 pounds; Michigan
Early, 694 pounds; Chinamington, 1054 pounds; common Kentucky, 680 pounds."
USDA. 1929.
Bureau of Plant Industry, Annual Report. p. 27.
"The hemp breeding work,
carried on by the Bureau for more than 20 years, was discontinued in 1933, but practical
results are still evident in commercial fields. A hemp grower in Kentucky reported a
yield of 1750 pounds per acre of clean, dew-retted fiber from 100 acres of the pedigreed
variety Chinamington grown in 1934. This is more than twice the average yield
obtained from ordinary unselected hemp seed."
USDA. 1935.
Annual Reports of the Department of Agriculture, p.6.
THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF CRADLE TO GRAVE PLANNING TO THE END
RESULT
March 30, 1943
The New Deal Bureaucrats and
their fellow "dollar a year" fiber racketeers of the War Production Board are
now offering Hemp Marijuana (dope) narcotic to the American people instead of increased
food production. The American people are footing the bill.
In one of the most dastardly propositions ever
"cooked" up the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the War Production Board are
manipulating the proposition of a promotion and scheme to grow and produce hemp from a
plant, outlawed by law, that is the fount of the insiduous [sic] drug known as Marijuana,
the worst and most serious source of all (dope) narcotic evils afflicting children, in the
schools and outside, and grown-ups alike in all walks of life. The fiber itself from
this plant is worthless. The seeds from this plant fly far and wide. The
resultant wild growth becomes dangerously uncontrollable. In the face of shortage
and scarcity of labor, foodstuffs, linseed oil, fibers and other critical materials which
are peculiarly being denied us, these corruptors [sic] of American life are now engaged in
the promoting of 350,000 acres, erecting 100 buildings and building a large volume of
equipment and machinery in a number of Mid-Western States for the production of this
narcotic (dope) plant product, all of which must reach the staggering cost of $500,000,000
and end in catastrophic failure. A number of land-grant educational institutions are
in on this racket. The Commodity Credit Corporation and the War Production Board and
the Defense Plant Corporation, through their own created socalled [sic] "War Hemp
Industries, Inc., Agency," something new in the New Deal bureaucratic set-up, are
running this (dope) narcotic show with private racketeers as undercover men. Large
profits have been made already by them on the seeds by cheating and gipping [sic] the
government. The financial "kill" is figured to be colossal for all the
participants. The kill to agriculture, industry, (the choicest and most fertile land
or soils are being demanded) and health and welfare of the American people is going to
reach disastrous proportions from which recovery may never be found possible.
Congressman Hampton P. Fulmer, Chairman, Agricultural Committee, and Congressman
Paul Brown, overseeing the Commodity Credit Corporation, and certain other members of the
Congress, among them Senators Harry S. Truman and Scott W. Lucas, and Donald M. Nelson,
Chairman, War Production Board, and John R. Hutson, President of the government Commodity
Credit Corporation, Agricultural Adjustment Administration, etc. (the latter active
participant) are acquainted with the facts as are being described here and have been
presented to them in detail. The power-pressure of the participants in this narcotic
(dope) racket is obviously superior to the best interests of the American people even
during these dangerous times of their sacrifices and sufferings at home and on the battle
front. The truth of the above report is vouched for. Do you want this (dope)
narcotic in your community? You are lined up for it. It is to be noted that
increased acreage for guayule rubber has been stopped because of the acute food shortages
but though rubber scarcities exist yet.
HOWARD D. SALINS, Managing
Director
Flax and Fibre Institute of America,
6423 North Newgard Avenue
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
NOTE: --- This whole hemp
marijuana racket will be dumped out of existence right after the war is over in accordance
to with [sic] a statement from Washington, D.C., but obviously not before the
"kill" in taxpayers' money has been made and the narcotic has been spread to
dope them.
Reproduced in Barash, L.
1971. A Review of Hemp Cultivation in Canada. MS.