HEMP GROWING IN SWINESHEAD

Growing crops in a rotation is an old method of managing soil fertility that can be seen in Roman times.  However, the development of crop rotation in modern British agriculture is largely attributed to Viscount Charles “Turnip” Townshend and was subsequently supported and adapted by Thomas Coke, First Earl of Leicester on his Norfolk estate in the 18th century.

In 1771 the typical crop rotation near Swineshead in Lincolnshire was described as:

Year 1 Fallow

Year 2 Wheat

Year 3 Hemp (considered a fallow crop)

Year 4 Barley

Year 5 Oats or Wheat.

Of note is the break crop of Hemp. Hemp was an essential commodity for the English Navy and for merchant shipping and fishing for the making of rope. This was recognized as early as Henry VIII when he stipulated that farmers must grow a quarter acre of hemp for every 60 acres cultivated. Farmers were not happy with this because many did not have the knowledge to grow the crop successfully, it was a labour intensive crop, and was not suited to all types of land.

Over time this meant that rather than a compulsion to grow hemp it was replaced with various bounty schemes, that is, payments for growing. The more efficient of these schemes started under George III with two Acts of Parliament in 1781 and 1786. This meant that the processors of hemp were registered by the Crown and once they received their hemp from growers they passed the details to the local Justice of the Peace who was authorized to make bounty payments.

Around 1771, when Arthur Young was travelling through Lincolnshire he observed hemp being grown near Swineshead:

“About Swineshead, the soil is very rich, as may be judged from the quality of hemp grown all over this country: they nevertheless manure for it at the rate of ten load an acre of yard dung; always sow it after corn, about May-day, on three spring earths. It never requires any weeding, as the luxuriance of the growth destroys all weeds; and it leaves the land in such good order, that either flax or barley follows it, which by the way is  a very strong proof of the great consequence of a thick shade to the ground, and so destroying weeds.[i]  Hemp is reckoned one of the most exhausting crops; but from the thickness of the shade, it makes amends for that circumstance.

The latter end of August, or the beginning of September, they pull it up by the roots, and water it; but sometimes they spread it over a pasture for a month, for the dews to moisten it; this is for ropes of grade to a ton; what they water in ditches is for cloth.”

Arthur Young then explained that the costs of growing hemp were so great that virtually no profit is made, therefore farmers consider it a fallow break crop. It is interesting that a fallow crop is defined in cash terms. It also illustrated the need for bounties to ensure the growth of quality hemp for this island nation.

[i] I have been reliably informed by an agronomist that hemp also suppresses slugs, a similar trait has been discovered growing white mustard to plough in and suppress slugs.