James Lane Allen

The Reign of Law: A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields James Lane Allen

An historical novel which presents the economic importance of hemp as an early raw material for clothing, maritime ropes, and other cordage products. Farmers had scarce conquered foothold, stronghold, freehold in the Western wilderness before they became sowers of hemp, with remembrance of Virginia and Britain. There is much about the growing and harvesting of hemp in this book, and a young man who works in the hemp fields to earn the money to pay for his education in a bible college. This romantic tale of life on the Kentucky hemp fields, avoids most of the drug associations later attached to marijuana. even as it discusses the intellectual climate in Kentucky around the turn of the century.

James Lane Allen, was a popular regional novelist. "The Reign of Law" stirred considerable controversy for its views towards religion and, especially, evolution.