Hemp paper is paper varieties consisting exclusively or to a large extent from pulp obtained from fibers of industrial hemp. Before the industrialisation of paper production the most common fibre source was recycled fibres from used textiles, called rags. The rags were from hemp, linen and cotton

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The first identified coarse paper, made from hemp, dates to the early Western Han dynasty, 200 years before the nominal invention of papermaking by Cai Lun, who improved and standardized paper production using a range of inexpensive materials, including hemp ends, around 2000 years ago. Hemp paper only reached Europe in the 13th century via the Middle East. In Germany it was used for the first time in the 14th century. It was not until the 19th century that methods were established for the production of paper from wood pulp, which were not necessarily cheaper than the hemp paper production but did not need extra production because wood was already there ready to be harvested, above all, repressed in the area of writing and printing papers. In 1916, U.S. Department of Agriculture chief scientists Lyster Hoxie Dewey and Jason L. Merrill created paper made from hemp pulp and concluded that paper from hemp hurds was "favorable in comparison with those used with pulp wood." .