The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-04-12

does not present another such remark
 able decline of an Industry d that
 shown by the statistics of hemp STOW
 ing. Fifty yeaYg ago this season the
 high water mark of American hemp
 production was reached. The crop
 that year yielded 14s.o00.0o0 pounds
 of fibre. more than half of which was
 produced in the state of Kentucky
 Today the annual production of the
 whole country amounts to less tnan
 one-sixth as much as was grown Tn
 Kentucky In 1859. One county of the
 Bluegrass state produced as much
 hemp then as the whole United States
 produces now.
 Ths latest figures show that there
 are about 1000 American farms on
 ninh hemp is grown today. with an
 average of 1s.s acres to the farm.
 The average yield per acre was 732
 pounds. Kentucky has ss percent of
 the acreage and about the same pro-
 portion of the total crop Is raised
 there. Sfxty-nine out of every hum
 United States Is grown in five coun-
 ties of the blue grass region of the
 state. Illinois. Nebraska and Califor-
 mia grow nearly all of the remaining
 12 percent. of the American hemp crop.
 The reason for the decline of hemp production is closely connected with
 the invention of the steamboat. when
 Rumsey and Fulton were inyentins
 their steamboats they were signing
 the death warrant of the hemp indus
 try. As sail power was swept from
 the seas by steam power, the demand for canvas and rope fell off. Then came cheaper hemp from other quar- ters of the globe, and the decline of profits to a point below that which
 could be made cultivating other crops
 which will grow in bluegrass soil. It ts the opinion of the Department of Agriculture that the American far mer is losing millions of dollars by the refusal of American twine fnaril- lecturers to use American hemp fibre in the making of binder twine. A score of years ago, when the consunnp- tion of binder twine was fifty tnous- and tons a year as compared with 125.000 tons today, the Department es- I,tfmated that if one-half of 1t had been made from American grown hemp the saving to the farmer would have amounted to $1.75o,o00. But the twine makers would have nothing to do with the proposal of the Department that American hemp fibre should be used. They declared 1t made "soft twine" which was not as satisfactory as sisal or Manila twine. To this the Depart
 ment answered with a letter from a large harvester manufacturer showing that American hemp twine worked aS satisfactorily as any other in the op- eration of the haryesters. The enorts of the Department never availed to restore American hemp twine to favor. While the growing of hemp in the United States has become a negligible quantity the importations of fibre
 have increased at rapid rate. We are annually spending some fifteen million dollars for the hundred thons- and tons of sisal grass that are inl- ported, $l1,0o0,0o0 for the 50.000 tons of Manila hemp. besides other smaller Items. and the importations are expec- ted to increase more than ever before The Manila hemp produced in the
 Philippines annually is equal in value to the purchase price Of the islands.
 The hemp industry in the Philip pines had it's birth some two and q half centuries ago. A monk of the Franciscan order, Padre Pedro Hspal- lergas. impressed with the poverty of the people, set to work to train them in the growing of hemp and the sepa- ration of the fibre from the stalk.
 It is related that he experienced great
 difficulty in overcoming the natural laziness of the people, but that with certain rude instruments he was able to fashion, they were able to do the
 work quite satisfactorily Those in- struments have been in use without important change from that day to
 this.
 The history of the hemp industry in
 the United States is an interesting
 one. Virginia tried to establish hemp
 growing in colonial times. At first 1t
 was enacted by the House of Burgess A~k Wa for tnG
 county courts should distribute to each
 tithable colonist a quart of flax seed
 and a quart of hemp seed, in return for which there should be given 10
 the tithing master after the next har-
 vest, one pound of dressed flax and
 one pound of dressed hemp. or two
 pounds of either, under oath that the
 tithable colonist had grown 1t, Later
 bounttes were offered for the produc-
 ton of dressed hemp and flax. Colo
 nel William Byrd of Westover was one of the hemp growers who received
 bounties from the state. But hemp
 growing never got to be passion
 with the virginians.
 Kentucky early got into the nefnp' raising business. and from the begin ming Lexington has been the centre of the hemp growing district. Within twenty five miles of that town there has been. more hemp grown than in HI the rest of North America together.
 It was at one time almost as much ot
 a legal tender to -Kentuckians as gold and silver are to the people of today. E:ven the editor of the Kentucky Ga- zette advertised that he would be
 glad to have subscriptions paid in hackied hemp. Kentuckians and oth-
 CTS saw great visions of prosperity
 for Lexington by reason of its situa- tion amid the hemp fields. Iiezekiah
 Niles declared in his Register that Lexington promised then to he the great inland city of the western world.
 Henry Clay never reached greater heights of oratory than when he was talking of Kentucky hemp and Ken tucky women. In one speech in Con- rreEs ne ,oid how the venerable Colo mel Shelby-hero of Kings Mountain had his family clad by the labor of nts own hands, how the spinning | wheel and the loom were in motion at daybreak, and how the matron de- | lighted to show her friends the stores | of goods laid aside for her dauRhtors when they married. Let the painted dolls of our cities sheer at these things" ho exclaimed. the daughters | of Isaac Shelby, whether at the spin hing wheel or In the drawing room, possess a real dignity that would, of Its own force, put to flight whole
 squadron of these semi-men called
 dandies"
 | There was always a great desire on
 the part of the Kentucky hemp grow CTS to excel the rest of the world in l rhe excellence of their hemp. They
 were just as anxious that 1t should be |