Would you believe that the back of the 1914 tendollar Federal Reserve Note depicts the hemp harvest and that the bill itself is printed on hemp
paper? The story has become quite popular, appearing in memes, blogs, and magazine articles regularly. It’s a fun story; could it be true?
Believers offer up a few pieces of “evidence”; hemp’s importance as a crop in the founding and development of the United States, the artist’s Pennsylvania roots and Pennsylvania's historical role in America’s early hemp industry, the physical attributes of the plants being harvested and the statistic that one acre of hemp produces as much paper as one acre of trees.
Many of these arguments are indeed true and easily verified through proper research. But the “evidence” is tangential; it does not address the core belief at the heart of the story. Sadly, the countless articles about the “hemp $10 bill” on the web repeat the same facts, often verbatim, in a circular firing squad of stoned misinformation. So what is fact, and what is fiction?
In 1913 agronomist and leading hemp researcher Lyster Dewey wrote an article about hemp for the United States Department of Agriculture Yearbook. In his article, Dewey notes, “The consumption of hemp fiber has a slight tendency to increase, but the increase is made up through increased importations, while domestic production shows a tendency toward reduction.” (Dewey, Lyster “Hemp” Yearbook of United States Department of Agriculture, 1913 Government Printing Office, Washington DC 1914, pg 285)
Hardly a ringing endorsement of the vitality of the hemp crop from the nation’s leading hemp researcher. Dewey noted that domestic production numbers were no longer tracked at the Federal level and that his statistics for domestic hemp production for the years 1911-1913 were compiled based solely “on the returns of the Commissioner of Agriculture of Kentucky….with amounts added to cover production in other States”. (Dewey, Lyster “Hemp” Yearbook of United States Department of Agriculture, 1913 Government Printing Office, Washington DC 1914, pg 284)Dewey estimated over 11,082 tons of hemp fiber was consumed during this period, of which 5,982 tons were imported and only 5100 tons produced domestically, mainly in Kentucky. Would the US Treasury celebrate a crop in which it was not a world leader?
Based on production numbers published in the 1913 USDA Yearbook, corn, wheat, oats, and barley were among the principal crops. In 1913 alone, the nation raised 763,380,000 bushels of wheat and an astounding 2,446,988,000 bushels of corn. The 5,100 tons of hemp raised domestically between 1911-1913 was not significant enough to warrant a place on US currency.
The same year the USDA Yearbook carried Dewey’s article Paris, Kentucky hemp seed dealer E.F. Spears received a request for a quote (RFQ) from George Schlitchen, inventor of the Schlitchen decorticator, for 10,000 bushels of hemp seed. In his reply, Spears wrote, “In Kentucky, the hemp industry has fallen off considerably”, and he estimates “Kentucky won’t produce 3,000 bushels (of seed) in 1913 for 1914.”
Deconstructing the artwork on the back of the note reveals critical details clarifying the picture. The left side of the back of the note showcases American agricultural prowess by depicting a harvest. A crop is being harvested with machinery powered by a team of horses and crewed by three men. In the lower-left foreground is a sheaf of bundled material, with two more sheaves fading towards the center of the note.
This is the first clue that the image is NOT the hemp harvest.
In 1914 freshly harvested hemp was not bound into sheaves. Whether it was cut by hand or a mechanical implement, fresh-cut hemp was laid out flat in the field to “ret” or rot for several weeks.
This process is explained in the film “Hemp for Victory”. This detail is the strongest evidence the picture is not of a hemp harvest.
Furthermore, the length of the sheaves is inconsistent with hemp. In the 1913 USDA Yearbook, agronomist Lyster Dewey writes, “under favorable conditions, Kentucky hemp attains a height of 7-10 feet when grown broadcast for fiber.” (Dewey, Lyster “Hemp” Yearbook of United States Department of Agriculture, 1913 Government Printing Office, Washington DC 1914, pg 203) Using the farmers and animals to scale the image, the sheaves just are not long enough to be 7-10 feet.
Believers in this myth cite that one acre of hemp makes as much paper as four acres of trees.
Considering the United States was importing more hemp than it grew, it is highly unlikely a paper mill was producing hempbased paper in enough volume to supply the US Treasury.
By comparison, wheat grows to about a height of 5 feet, much more consistent with the sheaved material in the picture. The sheaf in the foreground is smaller than the human in the background. If the sheaf were hemp, it would be much larger than the human.
Huston, who worked for the Bureau of Engravings, is credited with creating over 20 postage stamps, including the infamous “Upside-down Jenny”. None of his other works include hemp, and it seems unlikely that he would include it surreptitiously in this project. Huston was a career civil servant, not a secret advocate
published in 1916, two years after the $10 note was issued. Bulletin 404 was a viability study assessing the suitability of different materials as a replacement for wood pulp in paper production. The findings published in Bulletin 404 do not mean that facilities were producing paper from any materials tested.
And hemp hurds, from which the hemp paper in Bulletin 404 was made, was not even considered a commodity. There is no factual evidence supporting that the 1914 $10 note was printed on hemp paper.
There IS likely some hemp in this picture. The farmers appear to be using a reaper binder.
Perfected by William Deering in the late 1870s, the reaper binder harvested grain and tied it into bundles or sheaves like those shown in the picture. The sheaves were tied using binder twine, often made of hemp or hemp blend material.
The reaper-binder was a technological game-changer, vastly improving the productivity of the American farmer. The invention of the reaper binder initially created a mini-boom for the hemp industry in the late 1880s and 90s. The reaper-binder remained an essential farm implement until it was replaced in the 1950s by the combine harvester.
A simple but destructive test, any lab that tests cannabis could conduct could determine if this bill is printed on hemp-based paper. Any test lab wanting to participate, please contact me through the magazine. But who will donate one of their “hemp” ten-dollar notes?
They are collectible, worth up to $200 at auction. However, some of the value the note now carries may be built upon the hemp narrative. A negative test destroys more than a single Federal Reserve Note. If proven false, countless people will have collected this artifact based upon a false premise. Destroying the myth may impact the note s value. Any takers?
Dan Isenstein, the author of Tales from the Kentucky Hemp Highway, is a cannabistorian with multiple interests. Prior to writing about cannabis, Dan spent 20 years in various management functions at a plastic injection molding facility. His background provides a broad perspective with which to observe the emerging cannabis industry. Find Dan on LinkedIn @Dan Isenstein and Facebook @Hemp Highway of Kentucky www.kentuckyhemphighway.com
strain named Grape or Purple will be Indica dominant despite the preponderance of Indicas with grape/ purple in their name.
If you think about these names from the POV of someone new to the market, you’re left to wonder what the designated namer hopes to achieve.
Many of these strains are so cross-bred that they’ve lost any semblance of their lineage despite half-hearted attempts to maintain it via name. Sort of like naming your daughter Henrietta to honor your old Uncle Hank.
Over the years, some of my favorite names have been Alaskan Thunder Fuck, Velvet Glove, Burnt Toast, and The Great Ha’Tuh.
Leafly currently has 5,993 strains listed on their website as I’m writing this. This strikes me as roughly 5,000 too many strains, but that’s a topic for another day. What’s in a name? It turns out very, very little. I’ve smoked “zkittlez,” but the only significance it holds for me is that it’s a word that gives my computer a stroke trying to autocorrect.
Please share some of your favorite and most ridiculous strain names with us. Send them to fatnugsmag@gmail.com, and we might share some of them in our upcoming issues!
Dan Russell currently makes his living selling rolling trays, flying discs, and all the branded swag you can imagine. Currently living in Chicago with his wife and dog, Dan has a lifelong interest in cannabis culture. He is a veteran of many Phish tours and a lover of all things phatty. Find him on LinkedIn.
The cannabis industry is in full bloom for many states in the US and starting to open up more globally. New businesses, new products, and new ways to imbibe continue to impress and attract. This has created, in some areas, unique culture and community around cannabis and cannabis appreciation.
In other words, there’s a bright future ahead for the plant and its adherents. Companies that got in early are acquiring each other, and multi-state operators are not losing steam. The constant push of the industry keeps us all moving forward, but it’s still good to look back at times. With cannabis, we can look way back as other cultures have appreciated its effects for thousands of years.
In 2008, a group of scientists came upon a 2,700-year-old wooden bowl of cannabis buried with a shaman in China’s Gobi Desert, along with other objects meant to be useful in the afterlife. The stash had the stems and leaves cut and removed, so the culture is assumed to have known of the psychoactive effects and properties.
Six hundred years before that shaman was laid to rest, ancient Persian cultures drank something called “Haoma,” which is not entirely understood but believed to have been made of cannabis and potentially other substances like psilocybin, datura, opium, and wine. Very similar to that, ancient Indian cultures drank “Soma,” known as the “Elixir of Eternal Life.” India is also the home of the oldest term for cannabis known, “Bhang,” pronounced Bong, a cannabis-based drink still popular in India today. There’s no shortage of accounts; the plant goes almost as far back in time as we do.
My favorite historical account of cannabis use would be the ancient Scythian use of a small tent of sticks. They’d place a skin over the tent and heat up coals before placing cannabis on them and poking their heads under for history’s first hotbox.
The Scythian culture is known for being exceptional horsemen and fighters, with archers that could fight with a high degree of accuracy. These guys also had early forms of a bong. Excavators in 2013 found two golden bucket-shaped vessels with opium and cannabis residue in them. Golden bongs are hard to beat, but the history of concentrates is also fascinating.
Do you remember the first time you smoked weed? Where you were, the people you were with, the place and time you were (are) at in your life? For me, it was
the summer of 1988. I was heading into my junior year in high school.
I remember two kids in our neighborhood skateboard crew that seemed different from the rest. Both of them smoked weed, and one had access to it from a parent. I was a noob, a rookie, and it was time for my initiation. That decision would significantly impact who I would turn out to be.
After the first few times, I remember feeling like I had found something that I didn't know I was looking for. It didn't take long for me to become a regular participant. I really enjoy weed, marijuana, cannabis, the herb, the dank, the kind, FAT NUGS - whatever name you like to call it by. It's something that moves me and stirs my soul, but then I was (still am) a restless soul too!
I think about the kinds of weed we were getting when I was in high school. Growing up close to places like Boston and New York gave me access to many varieties. I remember the first time I got a bag of weed called by an actual strain name: "Rainbow Sinse", from South America. Deep green with reds and purples. It looked alien compared to the aged, brownish-green bags of dirt weed that I first saw early on. Really nice smell too.
Other popular strains around at the time included Colombian Gold, Skunk #1 and #5, Agent Orange, and Northern Lights. Some really nice East Coast outdoor strains were being grown back then, the “Pretendica” strains from upstate New York like Mean Green and Purple Kush.
At some point, we were able to get Collie Weed, aka Lambs Bread, from some Jamaicans in New York. It was brick weed, and it was really fucking good!
They would smash the pounds together in a vice or a press so it would fit into a space about the size of a couple of bricks or a college textbook.
Great for smuggling, bad for bud presentation, and bag appeal. You had to break apart the layers of bud to smoke it; bags would often just be a single chunk of weed. It didn't look pretty, but damn, it was strong herb. Of course, we started calling it the goat because that's what stoners do. Funny enough, at the time, it really was the GOAT - Greatest Of All Time!
It was pretty common back then to end up with some seeds in the bags of weed we were buying. Being curious kids, we decided to try to grow some of them.
I lived in the suburbs, in a place with many open spaces near my house. It was the perfect cover for firsttime growing adventures.
We would try to see the plants every day, just to visit them and get high and see how much they had grown from the last visit.
I don't remember any of the plants we grew making it to the end of the season. Most of them would get eaten by deer eventually; they loved to ingest cannabis. I remember coming back to a flowering plant once only to find a pile of buds on the ground. The deer had eaten all the vegetation but wouldn't touch the flowers.
THC is a defense mechanism for the plant to protect itself (seed production) from predators, with significant side effects for us humans!
In the early 1990's I noticed the progression of cannabis' evolutionary growth and cultural popularity. Every year I would meet more and more people who were regular consumers of "The Kind". I don't think there's been a year since where I met less and less…
Publications like High Times made it easier to learn about and follow along, documenting the intertwining growth of technology and horticulture techniques (who remembers the Phototron?)
If you had growing questions, you could just Ask Ed (Rosenthal). HT was full of the latest information. Jorge Cervantes was publishing his Growers Bible around that time, refining and perfecting the best growing and breeding techniques. Seed banks were becoming more prevalent. All the sights and smells of an industry on the rise were sprouting up worldwide.
I decided not to go directly to college after high school. I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do, but getting high and listening to music was near the top of my list!
Through friends and connections, I had made, I started meeting people from all over who were growing their own. The Grateful Dead Jam-Band touring circus took me on journeys across the USA, going to concerts, music festivals, and parties from coast to coast. I met growers and connoisseurs worldwide, and I would eventually leave the place where I grew up in search of my higher purpose
to be continued
Ganjagrid… an innovative new way to organically stimulate your plants while creating a bond like none other! Let’s face it… vibration is a part of life and
without it, we wouldn’t be here. The Ganjagrid Plant Vibration Trainer uses sound files supplied by the grower to mechanically stimulate the whole plant through touch! Think of it as a vibrator for plants!
Demonstrated results of vibrational stimulation include shorter, fuller, faster and stronger growth when compared to plants grown from the same mother in the same environmental conditions without it. Not to mention a new symbiotic relationship between you and your crop can now be achieved in ways we could never have imagined!
Ponder this… you can influence your plants growth using any sound file! For example, imagine recording a dope jam and sharing it with your plants using the Ganjagrid! Or sharing a meditative smoke session with your favorite cultivar. What about yoga or dancing? You can actually dance along with them!
Here’s a good one for you… the inventor, Glenn Holland, coughed up blood in February of 2018 and was diagnosed with lung cancer. His treatment included diet, exercise, positivity, surgery, immunotherapy, chemotherapy and FECO (Full Extract Cannabis Oil). During the lowest of the lows on chemotherapy, he had an epiphany and said to himself, “I wonder if I could record my own heartbeat and inject it into growing plants mechanically for an unprecedented and customized medicine?” Well… that’s what he did and 3 years later, you can too!
While oscillating fans or typical speakers initiate vibrations, there are some downsides to these inputs. Oscillating fans only engage the parts of the plant that are flexible and above ground. Meaning the large stalks, stems, roots and substrate do not receive any vibrational stimuli. Typical speakers lose their vibrational performance substantially as they move further from the source and again, may not stimulate the whole plant. Plus, Ganjagrid has a “silent mode” that can stimulate the plants without blasting airborne sound, so you won’t keep the neighbors up while you pump your favorite jams!
There are many additional benefits Ganjagrid brings to the table… Improved seed germination times and rates, canopy management, solo cup and tissue culture/clone container integration and it even doubles as a drying rack! Also, if you start grows indoors and then move out, Ganjagrid can help harden those plants to ensure you get the highest success rate. The most exciting new feature is in the works, but just to give you a hint… it has to do with deterring insects!
Seeds pre-soaked in water have a better chance of moisture penetrating the seed hull. Add some vibration to the mix and it turbo charges the process. Those older beans you have lying around can have a better chance of popping using our device. We have even demonstrated seeds popping open with such force they actually move!
Vibration can also speed the process of germination to get your babies growing even faster!
The solid structure is made from over 99% aluminum, one of the cleanest metals on the planet. Think about typical canopy management systems (netting or trellis). They are made of plastic or string, usually thrown out after each harvest and are flexible. For plastic systems, that means they end up in landfills or ocean. Being flexible, your plants can cause shifts in the net and alter light to canopy distances which affects yields.
Mendocino County, 10:00am October 10th, 2013
It was a gorgeous morning in Northern California. Birds chirping, lizards basking in the sun, bees buzzing bye as they do what they do. The sweet, sour, or otherwise smell
of ripening cannabis flowers permeates the air, nature at its absolute best! Meanwhile, 2 brothers native to the Ukiah area were in their kitchen busting down some morning smoke. Really just another routine morning for most folks in Mendocino County if we’re being completely honest.
Then nature goes silent, exactly how she does when people or predators move through the vicinity. No birds, no bees, nothing at all. Just silence. It would have been one of those “eerie silences” we are all so familiar with if not for the neighbors wind chimes gently casting their metallic melodies out into the world.
The brothers Eatmon, who are more commonly known as Bleezy and Old-E of Mendo Dope, exchanged a look that was mostly unconcerned and went back to breaking down some fat nugs on a weed magazine that they didn t yet know would never be smoked.
Suddenly, mere minutes later, the silence breaks with a firm “KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK” coming from the front door.
This was the moment when the Eatmon bros hearts sank farther than they thought possible. Only one kind of person knocks on doors like that and in mine and others experience, it’s always law enforcement. Today was no different, not even 3 seconds after the knocks a male voice calls out
“Mendocino County Sheriff’s office…” this is when Old-E and his brother Bleezy knew they were in a tight spot. There were no escape routes open as both the local sheriff’s office and the California Aerial Marijuana Patrol (C.A.M.P) we’re already in position leaving the young men nowhere to run or hide.
After making contact, sheriff’s deputies and CAMP agents made their way around and into to the backyard. As they did so, one of them got a hair too close to their dog and got bit. They then threatened to kill the dog, which was literally just defending its territory as any dog does. Effectively treating the two brothers like nothing more than common criminals at the same time. Luckily for them, the dog was not harmed. Apparently, the Sheriff’s office was provided a tip that included their address, names and a statement that the Eatmons had over 300 plants and a gun on the property.
Thankfully this was not the case or even close to it. The young men had no illegal weapons and only 25 plants, which a single year prior was very legal and even commonplace in the area. Somebody not only snitched but lied to ensure the raid (always be careful who you talk too about what, this is why!). With luck running out for the Mendo Dope boys and new county laws stating a max allowance of 6 plants each, they were handcuffed to a wheel barrel. They were then forced to stand and watch in horror as the MCSO pulled in one of their several woodchippers
