AGRICULTURAL TEXT-BOOK. 245 



is extracted from it at the rate of 36 Ibs. of the white, and 18 Ibs. 

 of the black species from 100 Ibs. of seed. (For a very complete 

 account of this plant see Patent Office Report, 1845, pp. 312, 

 397, 959-966 ; compared with Ib. 1848, p. 160.) 



539. THE HOP is a native of the United States ( Gray,) ; but 

 the cultivated varieties, of which there are many, are believed to 

 have been introduced from England, in which country it is like 

 wise indigenous. 



540. The only uses to which it is usually put are in medicine 

 and the imparting a bitter principle to malt liquors ; and in the 

 United States the chief field of cultivation has been New York. 

 It was introduced into England from Flanders in the reign of 

 Henry VIII, A. D. 1509-1547; and in that country it is grown 

 chiefly in the counties of Kent and Sussex. The quantity pro 

 duced in New York in 1840, was less than half a million pounds ; 

 in 1850, 2,500,000 Ibs, which exceeds five-sevenths of the whole 

 crop of the United States. 



New York also stands foremost in the production of alp, beer, and 

 porter. The breweries of the State produced in 1850, 645,000 barrels 

 of ale, &amp;lt;fec., being more than a third of the quantity returned for the 

 whole Union. (Census Repon Dec. 1, 1852, p. 75.) 



541. The hop is a perennial, the stems dying each winter, 

 and being reproduced. The male and female flowers are on 

 different plants, the latter only being of use; but a few male 

 plants are generally grown among the others. The flower is 

 the part used ; the active principle, a waxy yellow powder, call 

 ed Lupulin, being produced under the scales of the strobiles. 



542 The following analysis of the Lupulinic grains, and of 

 the scales, are copied from Pereiras Elements of Materia 

 Medica. 



