“In Nebraska, where the [hemp] industry is being established, a new and important step has been taken in cutting the crop with an ordinary mowing machine. A simple attachment which bends the stalks over in the direction in which the machine is going facilitates the cutting... The cost of cutting hemp in this manner is 50 cents per acre, as compared with $3 to $4 per acre, the rates paid for cutting by hand in Kentucky.”
– U.S. Department of Agriculture: Yearbook of Agriculture, page 23; 1902
“The most important fact to be recorded in connection with the hemp industry during the past year is the successful operation of a machine brake in the fields of Kentucky. This machine breaks the retted stalks and cleans the fiber, producing clean, straight fiber equal to the best grades prepared on hand brakes, and it has a capacity of 1,000 pounds or more of clean fiber per hour. So far as we have any record, this is the first machine having sufficient capacity to be commercially practical that has cleaned bast fiber in an entirely satisfactory manner.”
– U.S. Department of Agriculture: Report of Office of Fiber Investigations; Bureau of Plant Industry, page 145; 1905
In October 1904, some hope for a renewed hemp paper industry came by way of a Canadian publication, Pulp Paper Magazine. An article titled Paper from Refuse Hemp Stalks suggested that hemp was an excellent papermaking material. This was different from the hemp paper of the past, which had been made from discarded hemp fabric. This time it was the raw hemp material that would be used directly as a substance for making paper. Another article, Hemp Waste for Paper, appeared in the March 1906 edition. Then another article was published mentioning hemp for paper. This one, written by W.B. Snow, was titled Quality of Paper for Permanent Use. It appeared in the March 1908 edition of Paper Trade Journal.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture published a pamphlet in 1908 titled Papermaking Materials and Their Conservation. This and an article appearing in the 1910 yearbook of the Department of Agriculture, Utilization of Crop Plants in Paper Making, mentioned hemp as a future source of paper material. The Department of Agriculture also published information suggesting hemp for paper in a 1911 pamphlet by C.J. Brand titled Crop Plants for Papermaking. The 1910 yearbook article, also by C.J. Brand, stated that, “In addition to the waste materials that are available, evidence has been gathered that certain crops can probably be grown at a profit to both the grower and manufacturer, solely for paper making purposes. One of the most promising is hemp.”
In 1916 the Department of Agriculture published Bulletin No. 404: Hemp Hurds As a Paper-Making Material. This included a number of studies by different authors advocating the use of hemp for paper. Hemp hurds are the inner pulp of the hemp stalk. They had previously been considered a useless waste product of hemp fiber processing. Two authors of articles appearing in Bulletin No. 404 were Dr. Lyster H. Dewey and Jason L. Merrill. While acknowledging a problem with the number of trees needed to support the paper industry, the bulletin concluded that the hemp industry had dwindled to the point that it was not large enough to supply the needs of the country’s growing paper industry.
“Every tract of 10,000 acres which is devoted to hemp raising year by year is equivalent to a sustained pulp-producing capacity of 40,500 acres of average pulp-wood lands. In other words, in order to secure additional raw materials for the production of 25 tons of fiber per day there exists the possibility of utilizing the agricultural waste already produced on 10,000 acres of hemp lands instead of securing, holding, reforesting, and protecting 40,500 acres of pulp-wood lands.”
– Jason L. Merrill, Bulletin No. 404: Hemp Hurds As a Paper-Making Material; Department of Agriculture, 1916. As noted earlier, these facts have changed, but still play in favor of hemp, when various facts and figures are taken into consideration.
Merrill’s research into hemp paper production concluded that, “After several trials, under conditions of treatment and manufacture which are regarded as favorable in comparison with those used with pulpwood, paper was produced which received very favorable comment both from investigators and from the trade, and which, according to official tests, would be classified a No. 1 machine-finishing paper.”
“The crop of hempseed last fall, estimated at about 45,000 bushels, is the largest produced in the United States since 1859. A very large proportion of it was from improved strains developed by this bureau in the hempseed selection plants at Arlington and Yarrow Farms.”
– U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Plant Industry; Report of the Chief, page 12; 1917
Further studies were conducted on alternatives to wood pulp for paper. Notably were those of Ernest Becker and C.G. Schwalbe. These German scientists published a study in 1919 titled The Chemical Composition of Flax and Hemp Chaff. They concluded that hemp hurds, which they called chaff, was a superior material for paper. Other German scientists by the names of A. Zschenderlein and B. Rassow published a study titled Nature of Hemp Wood, an extract of which appeared in the October 1921 issue of Paper Trade Journal. The study also reported on the excellent qualities of hemp for paper production.
“When the work with hemp was begun in Wisconsin, there were no satisfactory machines for harvesting, spreading, binding, or breaking. All of these processes were performed by hand. Due to such methods, the hemp industry in the United States had all but disappeared. As it was realized from the very beginning of the work in Wisconsin that no permanent progress could be made so long as it was necessary to depend upon hand labor, immediate attention was given to solving the problem of power machinery. Nearly every kind of hemp machine was studied and tested. The obstacles were great, but through the cooperation of experienced hemp men and one large harvesting machinery company, this problem has been nearly solved. The hemp crop can now be handled entirely by machinery.”
– By Andrew Wright, Wisconsin’s Hemp Industry’s field agent of fiber investigations, Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin # 293, Page 5; 1918
“The work of breeding improved strains of hemp is being continued at Arlington Farm, Va., and all previous records were broken in the selection plats of 1919. The three best strains, Kymington, Chington and Tochimington, averaged, respectively, 14 feet 11 inches, 15 feet 5 inches, and 15 feet 9 inches, while the tallest individual plant was 19 feet. The improvement by selection is shown not alone in increased height but also in longer internodes, yielding fiber of better quality and increased quantity.”
– U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Plant Industry; Report of the Chief, page 26; 1920
By the 1920s the hemp industry dwindled to a few farms in the Midwest that chiefly survived by supplying hemp fiber for the U.S. Navy. At the same time, the military was increasing its reliance on imported Manila hemp.
By the 1920s the farm industry was also suffering. In exploring potential ways of increasing revenue the possibilities of making paper from farm waste were considered. The farm waste included discarded corn stalks, flax, and, in the Midwest, hemp hurds discarded by companies producing hemp fiber for rope and twine. In the late 1920s the topic had been brought up in the halls of Congress as a way of reducing the import of paper materials from Canada, and to develop an alternative source of material for paper production. More studies also appeared about the promising qualities of hemp hurds as a replacement for tree pulp in paper production. One study, Physical and Chemical Characteristics of Hemp Stalks and Seed Flax Straw, was authored by E.R. Schafer and F.A. Simmonds and presented at the American Chemical Society meeting held in Minneapolis in September 1929. The study encouraged further study into the use of hemp for paper.
With the goal of advancing the hemp farming industry in his state, on January 25, 1927, Iowa Representative Cyrenus Cole went before the House and introduced a $50,000 appropriations bill for the Bureau of Standards to research potential industrial uses of farm waste as an alternative to wood pulp for paper. By that time the U.S. had been importing the majority of its paper from Canada, and the U.S. farm industry was suffering from overproduction after Europe had restored its farm production after WWI. In presenting the bill, Cole reasoned, “Can these vast [farm] wastes be utilized? Is there anything that we can make out of them?” And he added, “We must find more uses for our so-called raw products.”
Cole was aware of research being conducted at Iowa College where compressed wood as well as paper and chemicals were being created out of farm waste products, including wheat straw and corn husks. Cole held a meeting with Iowa College President Herman Knapp, chemist Dr. O.R. Sweeney, Dr. George K. Burgess, director of the Bureau of Standards, and future U.S. President Herbert Hoover, who was then Secretary of Commerce. Developing paper products from farm waste and hemp pulp would have reduced the importation of paper from Canada while improving conditions for American farmers.
“Our farm problems arise from what I may call an unbalance. For two generations, or ever since the enactment of the homestead laws and the land grant college laws, we have been stressing production. Under these enactments we have thrown open vast new areas of fertile lands and we have applied every effort to the increase of production. We now find that we can have overproduction, and overproduction creates the surplus that we are now trying to deal with.
We must now put the stress on the other end. I mean on marketing and consumption. We paid all too little attention to these essential things in the equation of prosperity. We must find new markets, and new markets may not mean going across the seas with shiploads of our products, but in finding new uses for the abundant crops.”
– Cyrenus Cole, Iowa State Representative, appearing before 2nd session of the 69th Congress to argue for his appropriations bill to fund the research and development of products from farm waste and crops; 1927
Although Cole’s appropriations bill to fund research and development of products, including paper, from farm waste and crops was approved by Congress, the U.S. Department of Agriculture successfully worked to strike the $50,000 appropriation from the bill on the basis that it would be funding research into sources of alternative paper and construction materials already conducted by the Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Forestry and Forestry Products. In reality, the Bureau of Forestry had only conducted studies using tree pulp, and not crops. Secretary of Commerce Hoover successfully convinced President Calvin Coolidge to use executive order to reinstate the $50,000 in funding.
Within a year the Bureau of Standards was investigating the potential of farm waste products for paper and wood alternatives.
In 1928 Bill S. 4834 was introduced to Congress by Senator Thomas Schall of Minnesota. This bill was aimed at funding the construction of factories that would produce paper and building materials out of farm waste, including corn stalk and straw. Schall knew about the possibilities of using hemp for producing paper, and he mentioned so in his printed statements in the Congressional Record debating the bill he introduced. The bill was defeated in committee. In 1929 Schall introduced Bill S. 561, which was similar to Bill S. 4834, but that bill also died in committee.
“In 1929 three selected varieties of hemp (Michigan Early, Chinamington and Simple Leaf) were grown in comparison with unselected common Kentucky seed near Juneau, Wisconsin Each of the varieties had been developed by 10 years or more of selection from the progeny of individual plants. The yields of fiber per acre were as follows: Simple Leaf, 360 pounds; Michigan Early, 694 pounds; Chinamington, 1,054 pounds; common Kentucky, 680 pounds.”
– U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Plant Industry; Annual Report, page 27; 1929
By 1930 the very small hemp industry was still skipping along by supplying hemp mostly for rope and twine. That year the May issue of Paper Trade Journal published an article by R. Schafer and F.A. Simmonds titled “Physical and Chemical Characteristics of Hemp Stalks and Seed Flax Straw.”
The promise of hemp’s use and the possibility of a future market kept some people interested enough in the industry to work on developing hemp harvesting and processing machinery. The president of the World Fibre Corporation, a businessman named Harry W. Bellrose, owned a patent to a hemp processing machine known as the Selvig decorticator. It was invented by an engineer named John N. Selvig. In 1933 Bellrose sold the rights to use the Selvig decorticator within Minnesota to a businessman, Frank E. Holton. As a former employee of National Citizens Bank of Mankato, Minnesota, Holton received help from the bank and members of its board in funding his hemp farming business.
“A survey commissioned by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics reported that ‘from 1880 to 1933 the hemp grown in the United States had declined from 15,000 to 1,200 acres, and that the price of line hemp had dropped.’ But the Bureau’s surveys at the time also showed that the trend in hemp acreage was suddenly reversing, with just a few companies contracting for the 6,400 acres of hemp planted in 1934, increasing to 10,900 acres in 1937. The markedly increased interest in hemp was a result of speculation that technological breakthroughs in the processing of hemp for fiber and the growing market for cellulose for use in paper, explosives, rayon, cellophane, and plastic products would open new markets for hemp.”
– March 2008 Reason Foundation Study on Hemp, Illegally Green: Environmental Costs of Hemp Prohibition. Policy Study 367, by Skaidra Smith-Heisters
The Northwest Hemp Corporation was incorporated in Minnesota in October 1933. Farmers were contracted and began planting over 6,000 acres of hemp the following spring. The new farming venture was a learning experience for those unfamiliar with harvesting and processing hemp. In 1935 the cultivation expanded to other farms. Holton proved to be a problematic businessperson. National Citizen’s Bank unsuccessfully tried to force him out of the business.
Another businessman interested in the hemp industry was M.J. Connolly. Along with Holton and Citizens National Bank, the Blue Earth State Bank of Minnesota backed a new hemp business named National Cellulose Corporation, which took over Northwest Hemp Corporation in October 1935. Under Connolly’s management, the company began processing the hemp the farmers had already grown and that had been held in storage and in the fields.
This startup hemp company experienced more problems because no one would purchase the processed hemp hurds. Papermaking companies were set up for wood pulp, which used a different process than that needed to manufacture paper from hemp. The company was also forced to change its name when it was found that another company was already using the name National Cellulose Corporation. The new name was Hemp Chemical Corporation.
Other hemp companies were starting in the Midwest, including in the Nebraska Fiber Corporation, which quickly folded, and another by the name of Amhempco Corporation, which was incorporated in New Jersey. The investors in Amhempco were the mason jar manufacturers, the Ball Brothers. Their partners were the Sloan Brothers, who owned a carpet company in New York and whose aim was to use the hemp fiber in their products.
The Amhempco Corporation set up on land in Danville, Illinois. This was once used by the Cornstalks Products Company, which was in business to create paper products from farm waste. Amhempco planted hemp in 1935 and worked to create products from it. Without the capital needed to invest in machinery, the company stalled. Part of the reason for this was due to the activities of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics.
As I will explain, at this time the campaign to rid the country of marijuana was under full swing by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. This interfered with those planning to invest in and produce hemp products.
Also impacting investor interest in the development of alternative sources of paper and building products were the activities of the Bureau of Forestry.
Both the campaign by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and the Bureau of Forestry were directly related to the renewed interest in hemp farming and the potential for hemp products.
There were reasons why the FBN and the Bureau of Forestry worked against the hemp industry. Keep reading, and you will understand why this was so.