INDUSTRIAL HEMP ILLINOIS

"Hemp was first grown at Champaign, Ill., about 1875.     A cordage mill was established there for making twines from the fiber, which was prepared in the form of long tow by a large machine brake.     The cordage mill burned and the industry was discontinued in 1902 because there was no satisfactory market for the kind of tow produced.

In Nebraska, hemp was first grown at Fremont in 1887 by a man from Champaign, Ill.     A binder-twine plant was built, but owing to the low price of sisal", . . . --- Yearbook (1913) of the Department of Agriculture p293

---------------------------------------------------
Nov. 2, 1936
URGENT.
Mrs. Elizabeth Bass,
District Supervisor, Chicago, Illinois.

Dear Mrs. Bass:
Referring to your letters dated September 30 and October 5, 1936, please let me have a complete report as to the experimental farm including information on the following points:

1. Ascertain the demand for the machine that was used to harvest the MARIHUANA.

2. Find out places in the United States where there is such demand.

3. Find out just what the hemp is used for in those sections.

Would it be possible for you to obtain any information that would enable us to talk to the growers of the hemp, and to the manufacturers who use the material?
Very truly yours,
H. J. Anslinger,
Commissioner
[Letter taken from the Schaffer Library]
---------------------------------------------------

http://www.votehemp.com/PDF/Illinois_Industrial_Hemp_Report.pdf
" With the onset of World War II, the United States desperately needed a viable fiber crop to be used in the manufacture of clothing, rope and tents.     The ban on hemp outlined in the 1937 Act was temporarily lifted to meet military needs.     Because hemp could be adapted and grown throughout the corn belt, Illinois hemp production flourished.     As a result several mills for extracting the fiber were constructed in northern Illinois by the federal government.     Each mill processed the industrial hemp from about four thousand acres.     Since the straw had to be transported to the mill, all industrial hemp was grown within twelve miles of each plant.     Growers had to sign a contract to sell their straw the Commodity Credit Corporation, purchase approved seed and rent special machines for cutting and binding the industrial hemp.     During World War II, the federal government subsidized industrial hemp for farmers who grew more than a million acres " --- Industrial Hemp Investigative and Advisory Task Force report / submitted to the Illinois Senate and to the Illinois House of Representatives, January 26, 2000

Wall Street Journal - Dec 4, 1943 p1
Home-Grown Hemp
U.S. Revives Industry Of Colonial Days to Assure Supply in War
Midwest Prairies to Grow Rope Material Normally Imported From Far East
Plan 71 Processing Plants
By Walter H. Waggoner - Staff Correspondent of the Wall Street Journal

Washington---Hemp, an almost forgotten American crop, is being revived by the nation's farmers.

It was grown in Kentucky before the Revolution.     It was fashioned into homespun garments, twine and sacking.     Twisted into rigging and cables, hemp saw service with Perry's fleet on Lake Erie in the War of 1812.     New England shipbuilders sent American hemp over the seven seas aboard the Yankee Clippers.

Hangmen preferred hemp to any other fiber, because of its strength.

Now, after a 20th century decline from foreign competition, domestic hemp production booms under government guidance, with 150,000 tons of fiber as the goal.     In a way, it will once again make a hangman's noose---for the Axis.

Was Imported From Orient
Lack of cordage fiber---still needed for U. S. ship---has been a big handicap since war seized the Pacific.     Sources of such valuable hard fibers as abaca (Manila hemp), sisal and jute were cut off by Japanese conquest of the Philippines and the Netherlands East Indies.

"Imports from the Orient are virtually stopped," the Government asserted last March, "and there is no assurance that imports from Africa will continue."

The War Production Board, as a result, began cutting down on the wasteful uses of these now-critical fibers.

With Imports down to a disheartening dribble, officials early this year decided a domestic substitute would have to be found.     American hemp, though not as hard a fiber as abaca---better known as Manila hemp---or sisal, would fill the breach.

New "War Crop"
First official action was devising a program for vastly increasing, quickly and effectively.     U.S. hemp resources Secretary of Agriculture Wickard straightaway proclaimed it a "war crop."

Designation as such has little significance other than the permission it grants growers of wheat, cotton and other surplus farm products to turn their soil to hemp without suffering penalties under the agricultural adjustment agency crop allotment scheme.     This new distinction for hemp was conferred on February 24, 1942.

Since that time, farmers have been asked to sow at least 300,000 acres for hemp fiber and another 50,000 acres for hemp seed to assure 350,000 bushels of seed for continuation of the project as long as it is needed.

The extent to which farmers will have to switch to hemp is apparent in the comparison between this year's program of 12,000 acres and the new one of 350,000.

Many U.S. Agencies Play a Part
Although primarily a Department of Agriculture project.     a number of other government agencies are taking a hand in this biggest of all rope-making enterprises.

The War Production Board assigned preference ratings to steel and machinery and other necessary materials high enough, to assure construction in 1943 of 71 mills in the hemp-growing area for preparing the fiber for rope.

The Defense Plant Corp. issued a letter of intent for the financing of the mills.

The Commodity Credit Corp., sporting a new, division especially created for the purpose, will operate the mills.

In the background will be the Agriculture Department's Bureau of Agricultural Chemistry and Engineering and Bureau of Plant Industry, ready for expert consultation on any technical problems that might arise.

McCrory the Hemp "Czar"
Selected as director of the C.C.C. hemp division is genial, white-haired Samuel H. McCrory, a department expert since 1907, and until his appointment, with the Bureau of Agricultural Engineering and Chemistry.

Mr. McCrory, clasping his hands casually behind his head, reckoned he'd be doing a lot of traveling with his new job.     It will take him at least to Iowa, his home state.     Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Wisconsin and Minnesota, since "good corn land and the black prairie soils of the Middle West," are about all that's needed to grow a good stand of hemp.

Mills will be situated at points throughout these states to service about 4.000 acres of hemp each.     Exact locations aren't known in all cases, Mr. McCrory said, because farmer contracts haven't yet been completed.

Hemp Processing Plants
The, 71 new plants won't consume as much critical material in their construction as the large number might lead one to believe, according to the hemp director.     He protested against the popular Washington title of "Czar".

Driers, breaks, scutching and hacking machinery are, about all that is needed to prepare hemp for the rope plants, he said and they are of a fairly simple structure.

For those ignorant of hemp fiber-making, Mr. McCrory explains that:

Driers do what their name implies to the damp hemp stalk after It has lain in the field to be "dew-retted."

Breaks are fluted rollers through which the dried stalk is forced, crumbling the hard fiber outside away from the inside pulp and wood.

Scutches brush off the unwanted wood and pulp and scrub up the fiber generally.

Hacklers comb out the remaining fiber by tossing it over a row of rugged pins.

The mill's task Is practically finished at this point.     Fiber then is graded, baled and shipped to a textile or rope plant for manufacture into coast cordage, most vital need at the present times for next year's big crop.

ILLINOIS HISTORY - (A Magazine for Young People)
Vol 46 No. 1 Dec. 1992 (Printed by authority of the State of Illinois)
Polo's Hemp Mill By Amy Buser (Mt. Morris High School)
http://www.lib.niu.edu/1992/ihy921210.html

The United States government paid northern Illinois farmers to grow hemp during World War II.     The hemp was used in making rope needed on American warships.

With the fall of the Philippines and Java to Japan, the major supply of hemp was cut off, and the government turned to the Midwest to raise hemp.     Criticism was directed toward the government for the reckless expenditure of money for the hemp program, but money meant nothing when rope fiber had to be obtained from somewhere.

The hemp mill program was assigned to the Department of Agriculture.     The program for planting and processing the hemp plant was directed by the Commodity Credit Corporation.     There were to be forty-two mills in the Midwest, eleven of which were to be in Illinois.     The plant in Polo, Illinois, was to be the pilot mill for the entire program.     It was the first of its kind.

The Polo Hemp Mill, which began operation on November 20, 1943, consisted of mill buildings, a dryer, storage buildings, and a boiler house.     The overall cost was $350,000.

At first, farmers were reluctant to raise hemp because they knew nothing about it.     They feared a labor shortage at harvest time and also feared that hemp prices would be lower than those of corn prices.     To acquaint the farmers with raising hemp, meetings were held at the Polo High School.     The farmers were reassured that the necessary equipment would be provided for every one hundred acres of hemp.     The farmers in the area then joined in the attempt to produce the fiber crop, something entirely new to the area's agriculture.

The first carload of Kentucky hemp seed arrived in Polo in April 1943.     Farmers were soon busy planting.     The hemp seed was drilled into prepared ground between oats and corn planting.     Soil which is suitable for growing corn is usually suitable for raising hemp.

[ Hemp mills cropped up throughout Illinois during World War II.     Here, mill workers in this Chicago plant are preparing the sisal fiber for spinning. ]

During harvest time in the fall, an implement similar to a grain binder was used to cut the stalks.     The cut stalks were then laid in rows at right angles to the direction the machine went.     A process known as "retting" then occurred while the sun toughened the outside fibers so that they could be separated from the rest of the stalk in the factory.     Then binders were sent out into the fields from the factory.     The hemp was tied in bundles and shocked in the field.     The shocks were then sent to the mill for processing.     German prisoners of war from Camp Grant, near Rockford, Illinois, worked in the hemp fields and stacked straw as it arrived at the mill.

The Polo Hemp Mill itself did not produce rope.     The processed hemp was shipped out in bales to be made into rope at other locations.     During 1943, 3,600 acres of hemp were harvested in the Polo area.     In 1944 and 1945 a total of 1,800 acres were processed.

Between the time the hemp project started and the time the mill actually went into operation, the fortunes of the United States in the Pacific had improved so much that the crop was halved the second year hemp was grown.     By the winter of 1944 it was apparent that the Japanese were being defeated and that it was only a matter of time before the Philippines would be liberated.     That spelled the doom of the Polo Hemp Mill and other mills scattered throughout the Midwest.

Twenty-eight plants in the Midwest were closed.     Four mills in Illinois, including the mill in Polo, were to remain in operation.     But farmers in the area feared that the government might not buy their hemp and refused to sign contracts pledging acreage.     Without farmers to grow the hemp, the mill would be a failure.

After having processed approximately 16,000 tons of hemp straw, the Polo Hemp Mill was turned over to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation on September 29, 1945.     The factory on Illinois Route 26 is still standing.     It houses Imeco, Inc., a company that produces industrial refrigeration systems.

Sources:
From Bicentennial History of Ogle County;
"First Hemp Fiber," Tri-County Press, Feb. 24, 1944;
"Hemp Crop Brought $435,000," Tri-County Press, Feb. 10, 1944;
"Polo Hemp Mill Closes Saturday," Tri-County Press, Oct. 4, 1945;
"Pot Growers Once Dotted Area," The Rockford Register Star, Sept. 24, 1989.

ILLINOIS BACK TO MAIN PAGE