From
A History of Hemp, by Robert A. Nelson, I got some amazing facts:
In his study of Prehistoric Textile Art of Eastern United States (1891), Smithsonian Institute ethnologist W. H. Holmes showed that the ancient Mound-Builders utilized cannabis hemp. Hundreds of clay pipes, some containing cannabis residues and wrapped in hemp cloth, were found in the so-called Death Mask Mound of the Hopewell Mound Builders who lived circa 400 BC in modern Ohio. At one site in Morgan County, Tennessee, Holmes recovered large pieces of hemp fabric ...
Several colonies passed legal-tender laws by which certain manufactures could be used to pay debts and taxes. For example, in 1682 the Virginia "Act for the Advancement of Manufactures" made hemp, flax, wool, tar and lumber legal tender. Pennsylvania followed suit; in order "to encourage flax and hemp", declared hemp to be worth 4 pence/pound. The Crown abrogated the law in 1693, but it was renewed in 1700, and the exchange rate was not fixed but bartered. Maryland enacted similar legislation in 1706, making hemp worth 6 p/lb for a quarter of any financial or tobacco debt. Rhode Island paid a bounty of 8 p/lb in 1721 and accepted tax payments at the same rate. Massachusetts and New Hampshire also accepted hemp for taxes. ...
In February 1937, George Lower reported on the promising prospects for hemp in a professional paper entitled "Flax and Hemp: From the Seed to the Loom". It was presented to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and published simultaneously in Mechanical Engineering Magazine. The article concluded:
"Paint and lacquer manufacturers are interested in hempseed oil which is a good drying agent. When markets have been developed for the products now being wasted, seed and hurds, hemp will prove, both for the farmer and the public, the most profitable crop that can be grown, and one that can make American mills independent of importations.
"Recent floods and dust storms have given warnings against the destruction of timber. Possibly, the hitherto waste products of flax and hemp may yet meet a good part of that need, especially in the plastic field..." (39)
There are over forty footnotes here, so it's one of the more well-documented pamphlet sized items I've run across on this topic (per word, that is).
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