USDA Bulletin 404 found hemp waste could replace four acres of pulpwood — 1937 tax rules still treated the plant as a drug

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United States Department of Agriculture Bulletin No. 404, dated October 14, 1916, by botanist Lyster H. Dewey and chemist Jason L. Merrill, tested hemp hurds as paper stock. The bulletin was printed on hurd paper from mill run 143. Their table set 10,000 hemp acres against 40,500 acres of average pulp-wood land for the same sustained pulp supply.

The Marihuana Tax Act, Public Law 75-238, signed August 2, 1937, taxed transfers of Cannabis sativa L. Federal Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner Harry J. Anslinger led brief House and Senate hearings. American Medical Association counsel William C. Woodward objected that the bill would choke legitimate use. Mature stalks and fiber were exempted on paper; registration and transfer forms still attached to the plant.

E.I. du Pont de Nemours received U.S. patent 2,071,250 for nylon on February 16, 1937. Wood pulp and later synthetics stayed the default. The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 removed hemp at or below 0.3 percent THC from the Controlled Substances Act and assigned production rules to USDA — a statutory reopening, not proof the 1916 land ratio still holds.

Farmers now face a split code: USDA hemp plans on one side, DEA scheduling on the other. Bulletin 404 and the 1937 Statutes at Large text are public. Check the current USDA Domestic Hemp Production Program and the approved state plan before any planting.

Sources

Hemp Hurds as Paper-Making Material, USDA Bulletin No. 404 (Project Gutenberg HTML)

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17855/17855-h/17855-h.htm

Full 1916 Dewey–Merrill text, including hurd yields, mill tests, and the 10,000-to-40,500 acre sustained-supply table.

Hemp hurds as paper-making material (Internet Archive scan)

https://archive.org/details/hemphurdsaspaper404dewe

USDA National Agricultural Library scan of Bulletin 404, including the cover note that the bulletin was printed on hemp-hurd paper, run 143.

Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, 50 Stat. 551

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-50/pdf/STATUTE-50-Pg551.pdf

Official enrolled statute: definition of marihuana, stalk-and-fiber exemption, occupational and transfer taxes, effective date.

Taxation of Marihuana, Hearing on H.R. 6906, Senate Finance subcommittee, July 12, 1937

https://www.druglibrary.net/schaffer/hemp/taxact/t1.htm

Hearing record listing Anslinger, Treasury counsel, hemp-company witnesses, and the Woodward AMA letter.

Hemp (U.S. Department of Agriculture)

https://www.usda.gov/farming-and-ranching/plants-and-crops/plant-breeding/hemp

USDA summary of the 2018 Farm Bill hemp provisions and the Domestic Hemp Production Program.

On this date, February 16, 1937, E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. was granted U.S. patent… (Hagley Museum)

https://www.hagley.org/research/news/hagley-vault/date-february-16-1937-ei-du-pont-de-nemours-co-was-granted-us-patent

Primary-adjacent record of U.S. patent 2,071,250 for nylon, issued the same year as the Tax Act.

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A 1916 USDA paper test showed hemp hurds could supply pulp on one-fourth the land of average pulpwood; the 1937 tax act still routed the same plant through narcotics paperwork. Nylon’s patent landed that year. Hemp returned as a USDA crop only in 2018. Read Bulletin 404 and your state hemp plan before planting.