------------------------------------------------------------------ >From _Licit & Illicit Drugs_, by Consumer Reports, p. 403: ...In 1762, "Virginia awarded bounties for hempculture and manufacture, and imposed penalties upon those who did not produse it." George Washington was growing hemp at Mount Vernon three years later--presumably for its fiber, though it has been argued that Washington was also concerned to increase the medicinal or intoxicating potency of his marijuana plants.* The asterisk footnote: * The argument depends on a curious tradition, which may or may not be sound, that the quality or quantity of marijuana resin (hashish) is enhanced if the male and female plants are separated *before* the females are pollinated. There can be no doubt that Washington separated the males and the females. Two 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." George Andrews has argued, in _The Book of Grass: An Anthology of Indian Hemp_ (1967), that Washington's August 7 diary entry "clearly indiactes that he was cultivating the plant for medicinal purposes as well for its fiber." [7] He might have separated the males from the females to get better fiber, Andrew concedes--but his phrase "rather too late" suggests that he wanted to complete the separation *before the female plants were fertilized*--and this was a practice related to drug potency rather that to fiber culture. ----------------------------------------------------------------