“There should be no necessity for an apology or an excuse for preparing a work upon hemp culture at this time… It was among the first introduced into America, and one of the most extensive in cultivation among the colonists; and there is no good reason existing why it should not, but every reason why it should, today be among the first as the basis of another great and grand national industry, employing hundreds of millions of capital and hundreds of thousands of work-people.”
Chinese Hemp, growing for seed at Staten Island, New York 1890’s
‘Hemp (Cannabis Sativa): A Practical Treatise on the Culture of Hemp for Seed and Fiber, with a Sketch of the History and Nature of the Hemp Plant’ Written by Sidney Smith Boyce in 1900
Cover
Title Page
“Hemp, Cannabis sativa, is the most important plant, commercially, and one of the most widely cultivated, in Europe. Adapted to cultivation in all climates, from the equator to a latitude of 60, we find some variety of the plant coexistent with the progress of humanity from the earliest dawn of civilization in the far East, six thousand years ago, and still accompanying man through all the vicissitudes, incidents and exigencies of his march around the world.”
Chinese Hemp, male (left) and female (right) plants 1890’s
Section of a China Hemp Plot grown for fiber, 1890’s
Chinese Hemp, Stalks of hemp grown for fiber in the center, 1890’s
“The writer will welcome criticisms from whatever source, and receive and worship any other god, if shown to be more benignant toward the farmer’s welfare.”
– Sidney Smith Boyce from ‘Hemp (Cannabis Sativa): A Practical Treatise on the Culture of Hemp for Seed and Fiber’ 1900
