A decorticator is a machine for stripping the skin, bark

Bark

Bark is the outermost layers of stems and roots of woody plants. Plants with bark include trees, woody vines and shrubs. Bark refers to all the tissues outside of the vascular cambium and is a nontechnical term. It overlays the wood and consists of the inner bark and the outer bark. The inner...

, or rind off nuts, wood, plant stalks, grain, etc., in preparation for further processing.

In 1861 a farmer named Bernagozzi from Bologna

Bologna

Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...

 manufactured a machine called a "scavezzatrice," a decorticator for hemp

Hemp

Hemp is mostly used as a name for low tetrahydrocannabinol strains of the plant Cannabis sativa, of fiber and/or oilseed varieties. In modern times, hemp has been used for industrial purposes including paper, textiles, biodegradable plastics, construction, health food and fuel with modest...

. A working hemp decorticator from 1890 manufactured in Germany is preserved in a museum in Bologna. In Italy the "scavezzatrice" faded in the 1950s because of competition from synthetic materials and from other more profitable crops.

Probably hundreds of different decorticators have been developed since 1890. Misconceptions spread about the device includes the suggestion that the first working hemp decorticator was invented in the US in 1935. In 1916 there were already five different kinds of "machine brakes" for hemp in use in the US, and still others in Europe.

One of the most discussed decorticators is the Schlichten model. Quoted from Hemp

Hemp

Hemp is mostly used as a name for low tetrahydrocannabinol strains of the plant Cannabis sativa, of fiber and/or oilseed varieties. In modern times, hemp has been used for industrial purposes including paper, textiles, biodegradable plastics, construction, health food and fuel with modest...

 - American History Revisited by Robert Deitch copyright 2003 Algora Publishing:
Quoted from The Emperor Wears No Clothes - The Authoritative Historical Record of the Cannabis

Cannabis

Cannabis is a genus of flowering plants that includes three putative species, Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica, and Cannabis ruderalis. These three taxa are indigenous to Central Asia, and South Asia. Cannabis has long been used for fibre , for seed and seed oils, for medicinal purposes, and as a...

 Plant, Marajuana Prohibition & How Hemp can still Save the World! by Jack Herer

Jack Herer

Jack Herer was an American cannabis activist and the author of The Emperor Wears No Clothes, a book which has been used in efforts to decriminalize cannabis.-Biography:...

 copyright 1993 Green Planet Company Publishing:
In 1919 George Schlichten received a U.S. patent

Patent

A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

on his improvements of the decorticator for treating fiber bearing plants. Schlichten failed to find investors for production of his decorticator, and died as a broken man in 1923.

There are still companies who produce and sell new decorticators for different crops.