New Billion Dollar Crop
Popular Mechanics
February, 1938
AMERICAN farmers are promised a new cash crop with an annual value of
several hundred million dollars, all because a machine has been
invented which solves a problem more than 6,000 years old. It is hemp,
a crop that will not compete with other American products. Instead, it
will displace imports of raw material and manufactured products
produced by underpaid coolie and peasant labor and it will provide
thousands of jobs for American workers throughout the land.
The machine which makes this possible is designed for removing the
fiber-bearing cortex from the rest of the stalk, making hemp fiber
available for use without a prohibitive amount of human labor. Hemp is
the standard fiber of the world. It has great tensile strength and
durability. It is used to produce more than 5,000 textile products,
ranging from rope to fine laces, and the woody "hurds" remaining after
the fiber has been removed contain more than seventy-seven per cent
cellulose, and can be used to produce more than 25,000 products,
ranging from dynamite to Cellophane.
Machines now in service in Texas, Illinois, Minnesota and other states
are producing fiber at a manufacturing cost of half a cent a pound, and
are finding a profitable market for the rest of the stalk. Machine
operators are making a good profit in competition with coolie-produced
foreign fiber while paying farmers fifteen dollars a ton for hemp as it
comes from the field.
From the farmers' point of view, hemp is an easy crop to grow and will
yield from three to six tons per acre on any land that will grow corn,
wheat, or oats. It has a short growing season, so that it can be
planted after other crops are in. It can be grown in any state of the
union. The long roots penetrate and break the soil to leave it in
perfect condition for the next year's crop. The dense shock of leaves,
eight to twelve feet above the ground, chokes out weeds. Two
successive crops are enough to reclaim land that has been abandoned
because of Canadian thistles or quack grass.
Under old methods, hemp was cut and allowed to lie in the fields for
weeks until it "retted" enough so the fibers could be pulled off by
hand. Retting is simply rotting as a result of dew, rain and bacterial
action. Machines were developed to separate the fibers mechanically
after retting was complete, but the cost was high, the loss of fiber
great, and the quality of fiber comparatively low.
With the new machine, known as a decorticator, hemp is cut with a
slightly modified grain binder. It is delivered to the machine where
an automatic chain conveyor feeds it to the breaking arms at the rate
of two or three tons per hour. The hurds are broken into fine pieces
which drop into the hopper, from where they are delivered by blower to
a baler or to truck or freight car for loose shipment. The fiber comes
from the other end of the machine, ready for baling.
From this point on almost anything can happen. The raw fiber can be
used to produce strong twine or rope, woven into burlap, used for
carpet warp or linoleum backing or it may be bleached and refined, with
resinous by-products of high commercial value. It can, in fact, be
used to replace the foreign fibers which now flood our markets.
Thousands of tons of hemp hurds are used every year by one large powder
company for the manufacture of dynamite and TNT. A large paper
company, which has been paying more than a million dollars a year in
duties on foreign-made cigarette papers, now is manufacturing these
papers from American hemp grown in Minnesota. A new factory in
Illinois is producing fine bond papers from hemp. The natural
materials in hemp make it an economical source of pulp for any grade of
paper manufactured, and the high percentage of alpha cellulose promises
an unlimited supply of raw material for the thousands of cellulose
products our chemists have developed.
It is generally believed that all linen is produced from flax.
Actually, the majority comes from hemp--authorities estimate that more
than half of our imported linen fabrics are manufactured from hemp
fiber. Another misconception is that burlap is made from hemp.
Actually, its source is usually jute, and practically all of the burlap
we use is woven by laborers in India who receive only four cents a day.
Binder twine is usually made from sisal which comes from Yucatan and
East Africa.
All of these products, now imported, can be produced from home- grown
hemp. Fish nets, bow strings, canvas, strong rope, overalls, damask
tablecloths, fine linen garments, towels, bed linen and thousands of
other everyday items can be grown on American farms.
Our imports of foreign fabrics and fibers average about $200,000,000
per year; in raw fibers alone we imported over $50,000,000 in the
first six months of 1937. All of this income can be made available for
Americans.
The paper industry offers even greater possibilities. As an industry
it amounts to over $1,000,000,000 a year, and of that eighty per cent
is imported. But hemp will produce every grade of paper, and
government figures estimate that 10,000 acres devoted to hemp will
produce as much paper as 40,000 acres of average pulp land.
One obstacle in the onward march of hemp is the reluctance of farmers
to try new crops. The problem is complicated by the need for proper
equipment a reasonable distance from the farm. The machine cannot be
operated profitably unless there is enough acreage within driving range
and farmers cannot find a profitable market unless there is machinery
to handle the crop. Another obstacle is that the blossom of the female
hemp plant contains marijuana, a narcotic, and it is impossible to grow
hemp without producing the blossom. Federal regulations now being
drawn up require registration of hemp growers, and tentative proposals
for preventing narcotic production are rather stringent.
However, the connection of hemp as a crop and marijuana seems to be
exaggerated. The drug is usually produced from wild hemp or locoweed
which can be found on vacant lots and along railroad tracks in every
state. If federal regulations can be drawn to protect the public
without preventing the legitimate culture of hemp, this new crop can
add immeasurably to American agriculture and industry.
"Popular Mechanics Magazine" can furnish the name and address of the
maker of, or dealer in, any article described in its pages. If you
wish this information, write to the Bureau of Information, inclosing a
stamped, self-addressed envelope.
Pinch Hitters For Defense
Popular Mechanics
December, 1941
Over in England it's saccharine for sugar; on the continent it's
charcoal "gasogenes" in the rumble seat instead of gasoline in the
tank. Here in America there's plenty of sugar, plenty of gasoline. Yet
there's an industrial revolution in progress just the same, a
revolution in materials that will affect every home.
After twelve years of research, the Ford Motor Company has completed
an experimental automobile with a plastic body. Although its design
takes advantage of the properties of plastics, the streamline car does
not differ greatly in appearance from its steel counterpart. The only
steel in the hand-made body is found in the tubular welded frame on
which are mounted 14 plastic panels, 3/16 inch thick. Composed of a
mixture of farm crops and synthetic chemicals, the plastic is reported
to withstand a blow 10 times as great as steel without denting. Even
the windows and windshield are of plastic. The total weight of the
plastic car is about 2,000 pounds, compared with 3,000 pounds for a
steel automobile of the same size. Although no hint has been given as
to when plastic cars may go into production, the experimental model is
pictured as a step toward materialization of Henry Ford's belief that
some day he would "grow automobiles from the soil."
When Henry Ford recently unveiled his plastic car, result of 12 years
of research, he gave the world a glimpse of the automobilie of
tomorrow, its tough panels molded under hydraulic pressure of 1,500
pounds per square inch from a recipe that calls for 70 percent of
cellulose fibers from wheat straw, hemp and sisal plus 30 percent resin
binder. The only steel in the car is its tubular welded frame. The
plastic car weighs a ton, 1,000 pounds lighter than a comparable steel
car. Manufacturers are already taking a low-priced plastic car to test
the public's taste by 1943.
* * * * *
6. Paints and Varnishes
For thousands of years, virtually all good paints and varnishes were
made with hemp seed oil and/or linseed oil.
For instance, in 1935 alone, 116 million pounds (58,000 tons) [National
Institute of Oilseed Products congressional testimony *against* the
1937 Marijuana Transfer Tax Law] of hemp seed were used in America
just for paint and varnish. As a comparison, consider that the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), along with all America's state and
local police agencies, claim to have seized for all of 1988, 651.5 tons
of American-grown marijuana--seed, plant, root, dirt clump and
all.[National Narcotics Intelligence Consumer's Committee, NNICC
Report, 1988 DEA office relase, El Paso, TX, April, 1989.] The hemp
drying oil business went principally to DuPont petro-chemicals.
[Sloman, Larry, "Reefer Madness," Grove Press, New York, NY, 1979,
pg. 72.]
Congress and the Treasury Department were assured through secret
testimony given by DuPont in 1935-37 directly to Herman Oliphant,
Chief Counsel for the Treasury Dept., that hemp seed oil could be
replaced with synthetic petro-chemical oils made principally by
DuPont.
Oliphant was solely responsible for drafting the Marijuana Tax Act that
was submitted to Congress.[Bonnie, Richard and Whitebread, Charles,
"The Marijuana Conviction," Univ. of Virginia Press, 1974.] (See
complete story in Chapter 4, "The Last Days of Legal Cannabis.")
-- Herer, "The Emperor Wears No Clothes," 1991 edition, p. 8.
* * * * *
11. Building Materials And Housing
Because one acre of hemp produces as much cellulose fiber pulp as 4.1
acres of trees (Dewey & Merrill, "Bulletin #404," U.S. Dept. of Ag.,
1916), hemp is the perfect material to replace trees for pressed board,
particle board and cor concrete construction molds.
Practical, inexpensive construction material which is fire resistant,
with excellent thermal and sound insulating qualities, can be made
using a process called Environcore.(c) This process, developed by
Mansion Industries, applies heat and compression to agricultural fiber
to create strong construction paneling, replacing dry wall and plywood.
(See Appendix, p. 172. [Vincent H. Miller, "A Grass House In Your
Future?," "Freedom Network News," June/July 1989])
Hemp has been used throughout history for carpet backing. Hemp fiber
has potential in the manufacture of strong, rot resistant
carpeting--eliminating the poisonous fumes of burning synthetic
materials in a house or commercial fire, along with allergic reactions
associated with new synthetic carpeting.
Plastic plumbing pipe (PVC pipes) can be manufactured using renewable
hemp cellulose as the chemical feedstocks, replacing non- renewable
petroleum-based chemical feedstocks.
So we can envision a house of the future built, plumbed, painted and
furnished with the world's num,ber one renewable resource--hemp.
-- Herer, "The Emperor Wears No Clothes," 1991 edition, p. 10.
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