���Where plots full of nettles be noisome to eye,
sow thereupon hempseed, and nettles will die.���

Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry By Thomas Tusser, 1573

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"���Besides these uses of hemp, it is said to possess a property as a plant which renders it almost invaluable; via. that of driving away almost all insects that feed upon other vegetables. Hence in some places of the continent they secure their crops from these mischievous attacks, by sowing a belt of hemp round their gardens, or any particular spot which they wish to preserve."

"Hemp", Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1810

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Hemp and Hempseed Oil as Protectives Against Vermin

"It ought to be more generally known that hemp seed oil can be recommended as a safe and speedy means of getting rid of the parasites which infest the skins of animals. A farmer writes-

���I have used this protective for thirty years and always with complete success. In two to three hours after the oil has been rubbed into the skins of domestic animals the troublesome itching ceases, the vermin have been exterminated. The oil is also very effective against lice. It is cheap and easily procurable and does not like other substances of this kind possess poisonous properties. It can therefore be safely used with horses as a preservative against horse flies etc also with cats and dogs which are apt to lick off the oil. My long experience has shown that it is particularly useful with poultry. In gardens also hempseed may render effective service as a protective against earth fleas eg In keeping these insects away from cabbage seedlings. Hempchaff has a similar action. Hemp is also a pretty plant and will contribute to the adornment of the garden.���

Scientific American: Supplement 1907

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Hemp As A Weed Eradicator

Experiments have been conducted by the Agronomy department on the value of hemp as a means of eradicating noxious weeds. On the state prison farm at Waupun, a field of 3.5 acres, infested with quack grass and Canada thistles, was treated two years ago. This field was heavily manured and plowed in July, being harrowed weekly and the loose roots removed with a hay rake. The following spring it was sown to hemp at the rate of one bushel per acre, and a yield of over 2100 pounds of fibre per acre, valued at $118, secured. This treatment resulted in complete destruction of thistles, and nearly complete annihilation of quack grass. As a result this year over 125 acres of hemp have been sown on the quack and thistle infested lands surrounding Waupun. In all cases, except where sowing was made too late and growth was therefore checked by the drought, marketable hemp has been produced. In many instances, this land was not previously summer fallowed, nevertheless the growth of these noxious weeds was seriously checked. ���Where previous summer fallowing is practiced, this treatment appears efficacious in the destruction of these weeds. The fact that land can be used for the growth of a money crop during the process of eradication makes the method the more valuable.

Report of the Director, University of Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station, 1911

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There will be little trouble with weeds if the first crop is well destroyed by the spring plowing, for hemp generally occupies all the ground, giving weeds but little chance to intrude. For this reason the plant is an admirable weed killer, and in flax-growing countries is sometimes employed as a crop, in rotation, to precede flax, because it puts the soil in good condition. In proof of this, a North River farmer a few years ago made the statement that thistles heretofore had mastered him in a certain field, but after sowing it with hemp not a thistle survived, and while ridding his land of this pest the hemp yielded him nearly $60 per acre where previously nothing valuable could be produced.

Hemp Culture
by By Charles Richards Dodoe
Special Agent in Charge of Fiber Investigations, U. S. Department of Agriculture
United States Department of Agriculture Yearbook, 1896

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WEVIL - Mode of destroying. Mr. Willpole having suffered for many years by the wevils, and having tried every possible means to get rid of them, made use at last of a plant, the smell of which attracted these insects from their habitations. He put on a heap of corn, thyme and sweet marjorum, and changed each of these plants every twenty-four hours, in hopes of discovering one which would answer his purpose. He tried also hemp, took a handful of it, and put it on a heap of corn, and found the next morning that the hemp was full of wevils. These little insects seem to have a liking to a smell of a bad nature, since they find the disagreeable smell of hemp pleasant, and it appears that they like the soft rind of it. The handful of hemp was cleaned from these insects, and put again on the corn: the result was that in five days afterwards lucre were no wevils to be seen in the said heap of corn. In the season when there was no green hemp, they make use of mould and old hemp, and with equal success, except that it requires a longer time to destroy the insects. ���Malcolm���s Compendium

The British Farmer���s Cyclopaedia, 1808

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���After this period, the hemp ground requires very little care or labour till it is fit for pulling. This plant is never overrun with weeds, but on the contrary, has the remarkable property of destroying their vegetation. The cause of its producing this effect is attributed by some cultivators to a peculiar poisonous quality residing in its roots; by others it is considered to be so great an impoverisher of the soil as to draw off a11 the nourishment, which would otherwise contribute to the growth of weeds.

Agriculturists sometimes take advantage of this well known fact, and by sowing a crop or two of hemp on the rankest soils, they subdue all noxious weeds, and entirely cleanse the ground from these troublesome intruders. One of the greatest difficulties attending the clearing a tract of ground in the vicinity of Naples, the swamp near the Lago di Patria, was to rid it of an exuberant growth of canne, or reeds, that rose considerably above the head of a man on horseback. The sowing of hemp was found to be by far the most efficacious means. After hemp, Indian corn was very successfully sown in some of the fields.

It is said that this plant has likewise the peculiar property of destroying caterpillars and other insects which prey upon vegetables; it is therefore very usual, in those countries where hemp is much cultivated, for the peasantry to secure their vegetable gardens from insects, by encircling the beds with a border of hemp, which in this manner proves a most efficient barrier against all such depredators.

A History of the Vegetable Kingdom, 1841

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