Chapter II: Hemp542

CULTIVATION AND USES OF HEMP BY THE ANCIENTS--ITS USE LIMITED--THRACE--COLCHIS--CARIA--ETYMOLOGY OF HEMP.

[542] According to a statement in the Western (Missouri) Journal, about
7,000 bales of hemp, the crop of 1844, was shipped from that place
last spring. It is thought that 20,000 bales will be raised in that
neighborhood this year (1845).

The use of Hemp among the ancients was very limited. It is never mentioned in the Scriptures, and not often by the heathen writers of antiquity. It is remarkable, that no notice is taken of it by Theophrastus. It was however used among the Greeks and Romans, for making ropes and nets, but not for sacks, these being made of goats’-hair[543].

[543] See Chap. IV. p. 299, 301.

The only reason for introducing hemp in this enumeration is, that, according to Herodotus (iv. 74.) _garments were made of it by the Thracians_. “They were so like linen,” says he, “that none but a very experienced person could tell whether they were of hemp or flax; one, who had never seen hemp, would certainly suppose them to be linen.” The coarser kinds of linen would, it is certain, be scarcely, if at all distinguishable from the finer kinds of hempen cloth.

Hesychius (_v._ Κάνναβις) quotes the preceding remark of Herodotus, only saying that the Thracian _women_ made _sheets_ of hemp (ἱμάτια). In substituting these expressions he puts upon the words of Herodotus an explanation derived from his familiar knowledge of Grecian customs. To the present day hemp is produced abundantly in the vicinity of the countries which were occupied by the ancient Thracians. A traveller who has lately visited them, informs us, that “the men who drive the horses, which drag the boats upon the Danube between Pest and Vienna, _now wear coarse tunics of hemp_[544].

[544] Travels in Circassia, &c., by Edmund Spencer, 1837, vol. i. p. 13.

Ammianus Marcellinus (xxxi. 2. _p._ 474.), speaking of the Huns, who lived beyond the Palus Mæotis, says,

They cover themselves with tunics made of linen, or of the skins of _wild mice_ sewed together.

These _tunics_, though called “lintea,” may have been the hempen garments, which, according to Herodotus, were scarce to be distinguished from linen.

The next writer, who mentions hemp after Herodotus, is Moschion, rather more than 200 years B. C. He states[545], that the magnificent ship Syracusia, built by the command of Hiero II., was provided with hemp from the Rhone for making ropes. The common materials for such purposes were _the Egyptian Papyrus, the bark of the Lime-tree, of the Hemp-leaved Mallow, and of the Spanish and Portugal Broom_, and probably also the Stipa Tenacissima of Linnæus.

[545] Apud Athenæum, l. v. p. 206. Casaub.

Hemp, as well as flax, was grown abundantly in Colchis[546]. It was brought to the ports of the Ægean Sea by the Ionian merchants, who were intimately connected with the northern and eastern coasts of the Euxine through the medium of the Milesian colonies. This fact may account for the cultivation of hemp in Caria. The best was obtained in the time of Pliny (_l._ xix. _c._ 9.) from Alabanda and Mylasa in that country. Pliny also mentions a kind, which grew in the country of the Sabines, and which was remarkable for its height.

[546] Strabo, l. xi. § 17. vol. iv. p. 402, ed. Siebenkees.

Automedon, who lived a little before Pliny, complains in an Epigram of a bad dinner given him by one of his acquaintances, and compares the tall stringy cabbages to hemp[547]. As this author was a native of Cyzicus, he would probably have abundant opportunities of becoming familiar with the plant.

[547] Κανναβίνη. Brunck’s Analecta, ii. 209.

In the time of Pausanias hemp was grown in Elis. See his _Eliaca_, _c._ 26. § 4.

Dioscorides (_l._ iii. _c._ 141.) gives an account of hemp, in which he distinguishes between the _cultivated_ and the _wild_. By _Wild Hemp_ he means the Althœæ Cannabina, _Linn._[548]. He observes respecting the Cultivated Hemp, by which he meant proper hemp, the Cannabis Sativa, _Linn._, that it was “of great use for twisting the strongest ropes.”

[548] See Chap. XII. p. 194.

On the whole we may conclude, that hemp was not the natural growth either of Italy, Greece, or Asia Minor, but was confined, as it still is in a great degree, to countries lying further north and having a more rigid climate. The intimate connexion of the Romans with the Greek colony of Marseilles may have brought it among the Sabines, as the active trade between the Euxine and Miletus may have introduced it into Caria. With the material its name was also imported, and this is substantially the same in all the languages of Europe, as well as in many Asiatic tongues[549].

[549] Sanscrit, GONI, SANA, or SHANAPU; Persic, CANNA; Arabic, KANNEH,
or KINNUB; Greek, ΚΑΝΝΑΒΙΣ; Latin, CANNABIS; Italian, CANNAPA;
French, CHANVRE, or CHANBRE; Danish and Flamand, KAMP, or KENNEP;
Lettish and Lithuanian, KANNAPES; Slavonian, KONOPI; Erse, CANAIB;
Scandinavian, HAMPR; Swedish, HAMPA; German, HANF; Anglo-Saxon,
HAENEP; English, HEMP. Our English word CANVASS (French, CANEVAS,)
has the same origin, meaning cloth made of hemp (CANAV).

Hemp is comparatively rare in India, as well as flax; and, as flax
is there only used for obtaining oil, so hemp is never used for
making cordage or for weaving, _but only for smoking on account of
the narcotic qualities of its leaves_. (Wissett on Hemp, p. 20,
25.) Its name SANA, SUNU, or GONU, is given also to the Crotalaria
Juncea, which is principally applied by the Indians to the same
uses as hemp in Europe. See Chap. XIII. p. 202.

If we compare flax with other spinning materials, such as wool
and cotton, we shall find it to possess several characteristic
properties. While cotton and wool are presented by nature in
the form of insulated fibres, the former requiring merely to be
separated from its seeds, and the latter to be purified from dirt
and grease before being delivered to the spinner, flax must have
its filaments separated from each other by tedious and painful
treatment. In reference to the spinning and the subsequent
operations, the following properties of flax are influential and
important:--

1. The considerable length of the fibres, which renders it
difficult, on the one hand, to form a fine, level, regular thread,
on the other, gives the yarn a considerably greater tenacity, so
that it cannot be broken by pulling out the threads from each
other, but by tearing them across.

2. The smooth and slim structure of the filaments, which gives to
linen its peculiar polished aspect, and feel so different from
cotton, and especially from woollen stuffs, unless when disguised
by dressing. The fibres of flax have no mutual entanglement,
whereby one can draw out another as with wool, and they must
therefore be made adhesive by moisture. This wetting of the fibres
renders them more pliant and easier to twist together

3. The small degree of elasticity, by which the simple fibres can
be stretched only one twenty-fifth of their natural length before
they break, while sheep’s wool will stretch from one fourth to one
half before it gives way.

Good flax should have a bright silver gray or yellowish color
(inclining neither to green nor black); it should be long, fine,
soft, and glistening, somewhat like silk, and contain no broad
tape-like portions, from undissevered filaments. Tow differs from
flax in having shorter fibres, of very unequal length, and more
or less entangled. Hemp agrees in its properties essentially with
flax, and must be similarly treated in the spinning processes.

The manufacture of linen and hemp yarn, and the tow of either, may
be effected by different processes; by the distaff, the hand-wheel,
and spinning machinery. It will be unnecessary to occupy the pages
of this volume with a description of the first two well known
domestic employments. Spinning of flax by _machinery_ has been much
more recently brought to a practical state than the spinning of
cotton and wool by machines, of which the cause must be sought for
in the nature of flax as above described. The first attempts at the
machine spinning of flax, went upon the principle of cutting the
filaments into short fragments before beginning the operation. But
in this way the most valuable property of linen yarn, its cohesive
force, was greatly impaired; or these attempts were restricted to
the spinning of tow, which on account of its short and somewhat
tortuous fibres, could be treated like cotton, especially after it
had been further torn by the carding engine. The first tolerably
good results with machinery seem to have been obtained by the
brothers Girard at Paris, about the year 1810. But the French have
never carried the apparatus to any great practical perfection. The
towns of Leeds in Yorkshire, of Dundee in Scotland, and Belfast
in Ireland, have the merit of bringing the spinning of flax by
machines into a state of perfection little short of that for which
the cotton trade has been so long celebrated.

For machine spinning, the flax is sometimes heckled by hand, and
sometimes by machinery. The series of operations is the following:--

1. The heckling.

2. The conversion of the flax into a band of parallel rectilinear
filaments, which, forms the foundation of the future yarn.

3. The formation of a sliver from the riband, by drawing it out
into a narrower range of filaments.

4. The coarse spinning, by twisting the sliver into a coarse and
loose thread.

5. The fine spinning, by the simultaneous extension and twisting
of that coarse thread.

All heckle machines have this common property, that the flax
is not drawn through them, as in working by hand, but, on the
contrary, the system of heckles is moved through the flax properly
suspended or laid. Differences exist in the shape, arrangement,
and movements of the heckles, as also in regard to the means by
which the adhering tow is removed from them. The simplest and most
common construction is to place the heckles upon the surface of a
horizontal cylinder, while the flax is held either by mechanical
means or by the hand during its exposure to the heckle points.
Many machines have been made upon this principle. It is proper in
this case to set the heckle teeth obliquely in the direction in
which the cylinder turns, whereby they penetrate the fibres in
a more parallel line, effect their separation more easily, and
cause less waste in torn filaments. To conduct the flax upon the
cylinders, two horizontal fluted rollers of iron are employed,
which can be so modified in a moment by a lever as to present the
flax more or less to the heckling mechanism. The operator seizes
a tress lock of flax with her hand and introduces it between the
fluted rollers, so that the tips on which the operation must begin,
reach the heckles first, and by degrees the advancing flax gets
heckled through two thirds or three fourths of its length, after
which the tress or strick is turned, and its other end is subjected
to the same process. By its somewhat rapid revolution the heckle
cylinder creates a current of air which not only carries away the
boomy particles, but also spreads out the flax like a sheaf of
corn upon the spikes, effecting the same object as is done by the
dexterous swing of the hand. The tow collects betwixt the teeth of
the heckle, and may, when its quantity has become considerable, be
removed in the form of a flock of parallel layers.

Flax has been for a long period spun wet in the mills; a method
no doubt copied from the practice of housewives moistening their
yarn with their saliva at the domestic wheel. Within a few years
the important improvement has been introduced of substituting hot
for cold water, in the troughs through which the fibres in the act
of spinning pass. By this means a much finer, smoother, and more
uniform thread can be spun than in the old way. The flax formerly
spun to twelve pounds a bundle is, with hot water, spun to six.
The inconvenience of the spray thrown from the yarn on the fliers
remains, aggravated by increased heat and dampness of the room
where this hot process goes on. Being a new expedient, it receives
daily changes and ameliorations. When first employed, the troughs
of hot water were quite open; they are now usually covered in, so
as almost entirely to obviate the objections to which they were
previously liable. With the covers has been also introduced a new
method of piecening or joining on any end, which may have been run
down, namely, by splicing it to the adjoining roving, whereby it
is carried through the water without imposing a necessity on the
spinner to put her hand into the water at all. In some places she
uses a wire, for the purpose of drawing through the end of the
roving to mend a broken yarn.

This may be considered the inherent evil of flax-spinning,--the
spray thrown off by the wet yarn, as it whirls about with the flier
of the spindles. A working dress, indeed, is generally worn by the
spinners; but, unless it be made of stuff impermeable to water,
like Mackintosh’s cloth, it will soon become uncomfortable, and
cause injury to health by keeping the body continually in a hot
bath. In some mills, water-proof cloth and leather aprons have
actually been introduced, which are the only practicable remedy;
for the free space which must be left round the spindles for the
spinner to see them play, is incompatible with any kind of fixed
guard or _parapluie_.