HEMP. See CANNABIS.
The cannabis stativa, or hemp-plant, is cultivated on account of its external fila ments, which constitute the hemp used for cordage, canvass, cloth, &c. and the seeds abound with oil. This plant is an nual ; it rises quick into a tall slender sort of shrub ; its leaves, growing by fives or sixes from the same pedicle, are a lit tle jagged, and yield a strong smell, which affects the bead. The culture and management of hemp makes a consider able article in agriculture, requiring di vers operations, as pulling, watering, beating, and swingling, It is sown in May, in a warm, sandy, rich soil ; and is of itself sufficient to destroy weeds on any ground. The first season for pulling hemp is usually about the middle of Au gust, when they begin to pull the male plants, called fimble hemp. But the safer method is to pnll it a fortnight or three weeks later, when the male plants have fully shed their farina, without which the seeds will prove only empty husks, At the second pulling, a little after Michael mas, theTemaleplants, called karle hemp, are taken out of the ground. This karle
hemp is laid in the sun to dry, and then housed, for the seed to be thrashed out. The female hemp alone produces seed to perpetuate the kind. The operations of harling, 'watering, breaking, swingling, and heckling hemp, are very much like those practised in the dressing of flax. The hemp imported into this country chiefly comes from Russia. Amongst it the Riga hemp deserves the preference, which, according to the quality, is divided in rhyne, outshot, pass, and codilla hemp. The Italian, known in this country by the name of Bologna hemp, is of very prime quality, but comes too dear for the con sumption of the northern parts of Europe.
The best hemp should be clean, soft, tender, of long staple, and a sound pa lish-yello* colour, neither green nor red.