Opinions vary as to the quantity of seed,
from one bushel to two and a half bushels per acre. Probably a bushel
and a peck is best. Plowing in the seed is good on old land; rolling is
also useful. If it gets up six inches high, so that the leaves cover the
ground well, few crops are less effected by the vicissitudes of the
weather. Some sow a part of their hemp at different times, that it may
not all ripen at once and crowd them in their labor. Cutting it ten days
before it is ripe, or allowing it to stand two weeks after, will not
materially injure it. Hemp is pulled or cut. Cutting, as near the ground
as possible, is the better method. The plants are spread even on the
ground and cured; bound up in convenient handfuls and shocked up, and
bound around the top as corn. It is an improvement to shake off the
leaves well before shocking up. If stacked after a while, and allowed to
remain for a year, the improvement in the lint is worth more than the
loss of time. There are two methods of rotting--dew-rotting,
=and= water-rotting--one by spreading out on grass-land, and the other by
immersing in water; the latter is much the preferable mode. The question
of sufficient rotting is determined by trial. Hemp is broken and cleaned
like flax. The stalks need to be well aired and dried in the sun to
facilitate the operation. Extremes in price have been from three to
eight dollars per hundred pounds: five dollars renders it a very
profitable crop. Thorough rotting, good cleaning, and neat order, are
the conditions of obtaining the first market price. An acre produces
from six hundred to one thousand pounds of lint--an average of about one
hundred pounds to each foot of height of the stalks. Hemp exhausts the
soil but a mere trifle, if at all; the seventeenth successive crop on
the same land having proved the best. Nothing leaves the land in better
condition for other crops; it kills all the weeds, and leaves the
surface smooth and even.

HOEING.

Much depends upon the proper and timely use of the hoe. Never let weeds
press you; hoe at proper times, and you never will have any large weeds.
As soon as vegetables are up, so that you can do it safely, hoe them.
The more frequent the hoeing while plants are young, the larger will be
the crop. Premium crops are always hoed very frequently. Hoeing
cabbages, corn, and similar smooth plants, when it rains slightly, is
nearly equal to a coat of manure. But beans, potatoes, and vines, and