Lyster Dewey at his dest in the Department of Agriculture with hemp on his desk, circa 1920.
Dewey’s Diary
A dirty diary was recently bought at a yard sale in New York, what was in them was lost Hemp history…
The diary just happened to be from Lyster Dewey, who was a botanist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture starting around 1890. Although Dewey had many plants in his research garden one variety sticks out, Hemp…
That’s right, Dewey is the guy who grew hemp for the government in the early days of the 20th century.
Lyster Dewey with 13 foot tall plants on Arlington Farms 1929
Not only was Dewey in charge of America’s Hemp research, his government farm was at Arlington Farms… Yes, Dewey is the man who grew hemp right where the Pentagon now sits…
Arlington Experimental Farm early 1900
Another interesting note from the diary shows Dewey was also breeding hemp for selective traits…
Strains like kymington, keijo & chinamington were among the many old world varieties Dewey would grow and breed with at Arlington Farms.
“Row on left averaging 2.73 m. high from seed of select plant. Row 2 (48) 3.6 m. high of crop of 1914.
Row on right averaging 3.44 m. high from seed of plant 187 (14), 4.6 m. high of the crop of 1918. The plants on the right are the progeny of successive selections each generation.
Arlington Farm, Va. October 22, 1919.”
Lyster Dewey with ‘kymington’ hemp standing where the pentgon now sits. From Lyster Dewey diaries found at a garage sale…
Arlington Farms… I mean the Pentagon