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2. >From _Licit & Illicit Drugs_, by Consumer Reports, p. 403:

3. ...In 1762, "Virginia awarded bounties for hempculture and

4. manufacture, and imposed penalties upon those who did not

5. produse it."

6. George Washington was growing hemp at Mount Vernon three years

7. later--presumably for its fiber, though it has been argued that

8. Washington was also concerned to increase the medicinal or

9. intoxicating potency of his marijuana plants.*

10. The asterisk footnote:

11. * The argument depends on a curious tradition, which may

12. or may not be sound, that the quality or quantity of marijuana

13. resin (hashish) is enhanced if the male and female plants are

14. separated *before* the females are pollinated. There can be no

15. doubt that Washington separated the males and the females. Two

16. entries in his diary supply the evidence: • May 12-13 1765: "Sowed Hemp at Muddy hole by Swamp." • August 7, 1765: "--began to seperate (sic) the Male from • the Female Hemp at Do--rather too late."

17. George Andrews has argued, in _The Book of Grass: An Anthology of

18. Indian Hemp_ (1967), that Washington's August 7 diary entry

19. "clearly indiactes that he was cultivating the plant for medicinal

20. purposes as well for its fiber." [7] He might have

21. separated the males from the females to get better fiber, Andrew

22. concedes--but his phrase "rather too late" suggests that he

23. wanted to complete the separation *before the female plants were

24. fertilized*--and this was a practice related to drug potency

25. rather that to fiber culture.

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