The interior journal. [volume] (Stanford, Ky.) 1912-1984, 1915-02-05
LINCOLN'S HEMP ACREAGE
DOUBLED THIS YEAR
Many Farmers Are Planning to Plant
This Crop Instead of Usual
Amount of Tobacco.

this season bids fair to be greatly in
creased, says C. Hays Foster of STAN
ford, who buys hemp here for the
firm of E. F. Spears & Son, of Paris.
Mr.. Foster thinks that the determi-
nation of Lincoln county farmers to
raise more hemp has been Influenced
largely by the tobacco situation this
season. He says that his firm is now
paying eight and half cents a pound
for this years crop. Last year there
were something like $50 or 200
acres planted to hemp in Lincoln,
while this years acreage will go
over 400 and may reach 500 acres.
A number of the prospective hemp
growers who have already purchased
seed for this seasons planting and
the acreage they will put in are:
Sam Holtzclaw, on the Josh Jones
farm, six acres.
John Horton, Stanford, two acres.
James Mccormack, Hustonville
pike, 40 acres.
Frank Bobbitt, near Turnersville,
Is acres.
W. P. Logan, near Rowland, two
acres.
c. E. Tate, Stanford, II acres.
James w. Cover, Stanford pike,
20 acres.
Mr.. Foster is calling the attention
of Lincoln county farmers to the
possibilities of hemp as money
producing crop, now that many of
them are dissatisfied with tobacco
prices. He says that hemp, once the
great money crop of the Bluegrass,
furnishing employment to thousands
of laborers at a time of year when
labor appreciated the opportunity,
and which in recent years has all but
disappeared from the farms, is grad
ually coming back into favor with
the farmers.
Tobacco succeeded hemp as the
chief money crop of the farm, but
the low prices for tobacco ard cor
responding high prices for hemp have
set the farmers to thinking and the
small acreage If .css than $500
acres produced IN The hemp growing
section of Central Kentucky prob
ably will be moro than doubled dur
ING the coming eroa seascn.
Before and following the war;.
hemp was the leading industry of
Lexington. Now of the large NUM-
Der of dealers there are only two
left. The lint was largely used for
bagging the cotton bales which has
since been displaced by Asiatic jute.
Now the chief consumer of hemp is
the United States Government,
which annually is taking practically
all of the output, including the 1tnlp
produced in Indiana, Colorado. Cal
ifornia and Missouri.
Formerly the growing hemp was
1eveled to the ground with hook ur
blade attached to a short handle
called a hemp hook. Now it is sue
cessfully cut by a machine. 1t was
broken or the lint separated from the
stalk by a process of rottening, the
work being done with a mandrake,
an instrument with which every
Kentuckian from the Bluegrass is
familiar. Various attempts have been
made to devise machines to break the
hemp by steam or other power. with
only partial success.
The production of hemp is not so
exhaustive on the soil as that of to-
bacco, and fields given over to its
culture show more rapid recupera-
tive powers than where a few crpps
of tobacco have grown.
Cultivated hemp seed of the pest
strains of Chinese hemp are for sale
on the market at around $3.50 a
bushel. The best seed is produced
along river courses where q more
constant supply of moisture IS At
tanned.
Not to exceed 800 acres of hemp
was produced In the Bluegrass last
year, when formerly the annual acre
age was from $4,000 to 10000 acres.
Several farmers who have grown
hemp for many years and ceased its
cultivation to grow tobacco, are 60
ing to plant thirty to a thousand
acres, and already have purchased
the seed.
The Indiana hemp is not as good
as the Bluegrass product, yet it is
a splendid substitute. The Indiana
farmers can not produce as good
quality of seed as Kentuckians do
and they will soon be in the market
for seed. There win oe only a linn
Seventv-Seven Years Old