| OCR Text |
Show Kentucky Once Was Center of U. S. Hemp Indmtrv Government plans to grow nearly half a million tons of hemp annually promise to restore to Kentucky the hemp industry for which the state was first distinguished. Kentucky's blue grass section was adapted to hemp. Seed had come to the Colonies from Europe; Virginia Vir-ginia supplied Kentucky's early planters. In time practically all hemp in the United States was grown from Kentucky seed. A generation ago, the state was still producing nearly a quarter million pounds of seed a year. Grown for its fiber, the hemp shoots up seven to ten feet and 14 feet when cultivated for seed. Homespun cloth was woven from the fiber by wives and daughters of settlers. A later use of the fiber Included the making of bagging, cotton cot-ton baling, rope and sailcloth. Early in the last century Kentucky had a dozen mills making hemp bagging; 40 producing hemp rope for fast clin IZ S,hipS nd other merchantmen! and for the growing u. S. navy Lexington was a market for hempen goods. v " Foreign competition cut domestic output Abaca, so-called manSa hemp, from a plant of the banana family, made better rope at lZ cost Jute supplanted hemp $2 many uses. Also" Kentucky planter, found tobacco a more profitable cSJ |
