or hemp. The only thing particularly to be avoided is, the cutting or tearing the hemp with the break-machine. This will be avoided by frequent turnings and shiftings of the sheaves or beets. 12. Price broken.-Hemp is so seldom sold in the Hebrides, or rather indeed so seldom known as an article of commerce, in any stage of its progress from the period of sowing to that of using it in cordage and for similar purposes, that we can mention nothing certain on this head. 13. Bunching and Heckling.-These depend upon the uses to which hemp is meant to be applied. The most ordinary large toothed heckle, once used, is sufficient for the coarsest hemp, which is intended for ropes or large netting. But such hemp as is meant for fine sailcloth or linen, will require two or three hecklings, and proportionable bunching, according to the discretion and convenience of the workmen. The following directions for heckling, are given by the learned and ingenious Maxwell of Arkland, who seemed to have paid much attention to the cultivation of hemp. "If you design hemp for gross or coarse yarn, you need not heckle it, in that case, but with a large toothed heckle. If you design it for finer uses, you must begin with your coarse heckle, and heckle it again in the second heckle. If you would have your hemp brought to be yet finer, you must heckle it a third time, and in a finer heckle. You must always work hemp gradually, and not heckle it at first with your finer or finest heckle; for, if you do, do, you must expect more tow than hemp fit for use and service. When you have a mind to have it extraordinary fine, you must not in the least heckle it; but you must work it entirely by the help of a brush for that purpose, made of hog's bristles, and stiffened artificially with glue. This brushing does not so wear and tear it as the heckles do, but by easy degrees separates the threads and fibres thereof. A brush will last many years if well and carefully used. "Hemp requires heckles with longer and larger teeth than flax does. If you design your hemp for sail-cloth, two hecklings will suffice, and those hecklings are to be in the first and second large heckles," &c*. 14. Price Heckled.-The price of good hemp has this year (1808-1809,) amounted to L. 136 Sterling per ton of 20 cwts. each cwt. of 112 lbs. at different periods, and has fluctuated between L. 110 and L 125 during the whole season. Supposing we assume L. 120 as the medium price; we shall perceive very powerful inducements indeed to the cultivation of this plant. A ton of hemp is 20 cwts. each of 112 pounds of 17 ounces, or 2240 pounds, or 128 stone weight. Now an acre of tolerable land will produce 32 stone weight of hemp, consequently 4 acres will produce one The value of the gross produce of an acre is accordingly 120 or L. 30 Sterling. The expence is ton. L. 1. 16s. Vid. Select transactions, p. 363-364. L. 1. 16s. less than that of flax, (for hemp needs no weeding,) and cannot reasonably be estimated at more than L. 16. 13s. per acre; so that the clear profit will amount to L. 13. 7s. A profit so considerable, that we trust many farmers in the Hebrides will be persuaded frequently to realize it. 15. Spinning-Earnings.-The advantage of affording employment to men, women, and children in winter, ought to induce Hebridian proprietors more powerfully than any others in Britain to encourage the cultivation of hemp. A woman can earn 6 pence a day, and a girl of 12 or 13 years of age 4 pence, during the months of November, December, January, and February; and allowing them to work only five days in the week for these four months, or 17 weeks, grown up women will earn L. 2. 2s. 6d. and girls L. 1. 8s. 4d. each, during a period ussually passed in a state of listlessness and torpor. Were roperies commenced, and men and boys regularly employed in manufacturing ropes and cables, &c. the advantage to the Hebrides would be very great; so great indeed, that persons unacquainted with the maritime state of this district will not easily believe it. Every active man would clear L. 10. and every boy L. 4. during their days of confinement in the stormy seasons of the year, even although they should pursue their usual avocations in spring, summer, and autumn. It would be easy to give the data which form the ground of this assertion, but they can only be understood by an Hebridian, who knows the demand for Vid. p. 136, Art. Expences and profit. cordage cordage in these isles, as well as the vast proportion of time lost in winter, and in stormy weather, by the great mass of the population. In no other part of our empire, is the species of manufacture alluded to so necessary, and in none would it prove so profitable. Many lives are lost every year, merely owing to bad or scanty cordage; and many thousand natives spend a large portion of the winter and spring months in total inactivity, who, with proper management, and especially by the introduction of hemp manufacture and husbandry, would enrich themselves individually, and greatly benefit their country.. Our government wisely encourages the cultivation of hemp, both by bounties, and by a considerable duty upon what is furnished by foreign countries. The bounties fluctuate occasionally, and are likely to be soon augmented, should our present precariousness of foreign relations continue for any time; but the import duty is so heavy, that the British farmer derives from it alone a sufficient motive for the extensive culture of this important article. The old duty was L. 2. 4s. per cwt. of dressed hemp; but since the 10th of June last, it amounts to L. 4. 4s. war-duty included, per cwt. or L. 84. per ton!-a sum double the usual price of dressed hemp in London, in time of peace. 16. * Vid. An act for repealing the several duties of customs chargeable in Great Britain, and for granting other duties in lieu thereof,-10th June 1809. - 16. Repetition on the same spot. The well ascertained fact of hemp growing in many farms in Ireland, Russia, Poland, Canada, and the north of France, without any perceptible degeneracy in the crop, or deterioration of the soil, for a dozen or 20 years successively, is the best argument against those persons who arraign this plant as a scourger of the ground. It requires, indeed, strong land, as well as plentiful manure, to produce, in succession, good crops of hemp from the same field: But the thing is uniformly done in the countries most famous for its cultivation; and that too by the most successful farmers. They are impelled to this repeating system, no doubt, as well by the facilities afforded by watering-pits, and other accommodations once constructed, as by the circumstance of the plants being naturally disposed to thrive on the same spot for a succession of seasons. These facilities are indeed very important to the farmer, and must be taken into view. in all his calculations. Hemp or flax boors are unknown among us, though common in Holland, Italy, and Flanders, who purchase the article from the farmer either upon the ground or the moment it is pulled, and whose employment, during the year, is confined to this article alone. The whole process of preparing hemp for use is equally unpleasant and tedious to the common farmer,—and this, together with the loss which usually results in consequence of want of skill or of attention, is perhaps the great cause of the general neglect of so profitable a branch of agricul ture. Hebridian proprietors, whose lands are overstocked with population, ought to attend to this circumstance, |