Hemp Plant (Cannabis Sativa)
A vigorous annual largely cultivated for its fibre. In England it is 4 to 10 feet high, but in Italy sometimes 20 feet high. In plants growing singly the stem is much branched, but in masses is generally simple.
It is obtained chiefly from the Manila hemp plant (Musa textilis) of the family Musaceae (banana family). It is grown mainly in its native Philippine Islands, where it has been cultivated since the 16th cent. and is known as abacá.
But it is not as a narcotic and excitant that the hemp plant is most useful to mankind; it is as an advancer rather than a retarder of civilization, that its utility is made most manifest.
A machine had been developed to cheaply separate the fiber from the Hemp plant. William Randolph Hearst owned a huge paper making industry and DuPont had just gotten a patent on a sulfuric acid process to make paper from wood pulp.
Hemp is classified as an illegal drug in the United States, and possession of hemp plants or drugs made from hemp is illegal.
agave, century plant, hemp plant, mescal, sisal, sisal agave, sisal hemp
Family
Agavaceae ...
After all, tomatoes are a comparatively recent food staple because Victorians & Edwardians were convinced they were deadly, & the superstitious horror of the beneficial hemp plant keeps it banned in the United States as though we're all at ...
 See also: Hemp, Canna, Cannabis, Medic, May
  
|
RSS
