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HOME HOP. 



his brown coat, with the hearty shake of the hand, 

 and the gruff, homely, and heartfelt inquiry after 

 " a* at hame," we bad the warm-hearted sheep- 

 iurmcr; a lover of out-of-door exploits, and ath- 

 letic exercises ; " an angler by the streams, and a 

 hunter on the hills." 



HOME, SIR EVKKARD, an eminent surgeon, was 

 the son of Robert Home, Esq. of Greenlaw Castle, 

 county of Berwick, himself a practitioner of emi- 

 nence, and was born in 1756. At an early age he 

 embraced the profession of surgery, which he 

 studied under the celebrated John Hunter, who 

 was his brother-in-law, and which he practised 

 with the greatest success in the metropolis, for 

 more than forty years. His surgical publications 

 were voluminous, and of high repute. Among 

 them were " Lectures on Comparative Anatomy," 

 in two vols. 4to., in which are explained the pre- 

 parations in the Hunterian collection, illustrated 

 by 171 engravings; an "Hunterian Oration" in 

 honour of surgery, and in memory of those prac- 

 titioners by whose labours it has been advanced, 

 delivered in the theatre of the college, February 

 14, 1814; and "Practical Observations on the 

 Treatment of Ulcers on the Legs, considered as a 

 Branch of Military Surgery, 1797;" "Observa- 

 tions on Cancer, 1805 ;" and " Practical Observa- 

 tions on the Treatment of Stricture in the Urethra 

 and in the (Esophagus," 3 vols. 8vo. Besides 

 these, Sir Everard contributed largely to the philo- 

 sophical transactions, and a variety of ably-written 

 articles to the medical periodicals of the day. His 

 late majesty when prince regent, raised him to the 

 dignity of a baronet, by patent, dated Jan. 2. 1813, 

 and also conferred on him the appointment of ser- 

 geant-surgeon, in which office he was continued by 

 William IV. Sir Everard was also surgeon to 

 Chelsea hospital, and honorary professor of ana- 

 tomy and surgery to the royal college of surgeons ; 

 for many years he was the president of the college. 

 He died Aug. 31, 1832. Sir Everard married in 

 1792, and left a family. 



HONEY STONE OR MELLITE; a mineral, 

 crystallised in honey yellow transparent octohe- 

 drons, which is found sparingly in beds of brown 

 coal in Saxony. It consists of alumina united to 

 a remarkable acid, of organic origin, to which the 

 name of mellitic acid has been given. It is com- 

 posed of carbon and oxygen, with a small quantity 

 of hydrogen and is considered by some as repre- 

 sented by the formula C 4 O 3 + HO; by others as 

 C 4 O 4 -fH. According to the latter view the mel- 

 litic acid is a bydracid. 



HOP, (a.) The hop is a genus of the class Mon- 

 cecia XXI. and of the order Pentandria V. Its 

 specific generic character consists of a male flower, 

 calyx pentaphillous, or five-leaved, having no cor- 

 olla, but anthers, with two pores at top. Female 

 flower, calyx, an oblique entire scale of the Ament, 

 or one large leaf; corolla none, but two styles, and 

 one side within the calyx coated. The stalk is 

 weak, and climbs spirally round the pole or sup- 

 port, ascending always from the right hand to the 

 left, against the sun. The stalk and leaves are 

 rough to the touch ; upper leaves heart-shaped, 

 lower ones divided into three lobes, serrated on the 

 edges, and growing in pairs on long foot stalks op- 

 posite each other ; the flowers in loose racemes ; 

 the male flower distinct, on branched peduncles ; 

 the female on peduncles, in hairs of the form of a 

 strobiius or cone, composed of large imbricated 

 calyces, containing one or two seeds. The scales of 



the strobiius are ovated, and of a yellow green. 

 In botany there is but one description of hop 

 " lupulus ;" but the planters divide it into differ- 

 ent species, such as the golden, the Flanders, the 

 red and white ruff, the white, the oval, and the 

 long square garlic : these all differ in colour, shape 

 of their bells, quantity and time of bearing, and 

 ripening. The golden hop, from Farnham in Sur- 

 rey, brings the highest price in the market : this 

 may perhaps arise from the care with which they 

 are picked there, hop by hop, without being mixed 

 with leaves, &c. ; while in Kent, and other coun- 

 ties, they strip them off more carelessly ; and it is 

 common to find the stalk and leaves mixed with 

 the hops in the bags. 



The hop has been cultivated from time imme- 

 morial in Europe on account of the useful proper- 

 ties of its flowers in the preservation of beer. The 

 female blossom is the part used ; and as the male 

 and female flowers are on different plants, the fe- 

 male only is cultivated. It is no where cultivated 

 in the East, and although it grows wild in different 

 parts of Asia (a fact which may not be generally 

 known), its flowers are no where in that quarter of 

 the world applied to a useful purpose. The gene- 

 ric name of the plant humulus, is formed from 

 humus, " fresh earth," the hop growing only in 

 rich soils ; and the specific name of the common 

 hop, lupulus, is a contraction from lupus salictarius, 

 the name by which it was, according to Pliny, for. 

 merly called, because it grew among the willows, to 

 which, by twining round and choking up, it proved 

 as destructive as the wolf to a flock. It is rather 

 curious that an allusion to the wolf is also con- 

 tained in the ancient British name of the plant, 

 llewig y blaidd, or " bane of the wolf." The cur- 

 rent name, hop, seems to proceed from the Anglo- 

 Saxon hoppan, to climb. 



Hops are first mentioned in the English Statute 

 Book in 1552, in the act 5 Edward VI. chap. 5, 

 where lands " set with saffron or hops" are men- 

 tioned among other exceptions to the operation of 

 the statute itself, -which enacted that so much land 

 should be kept in tillage as had been at any time 

 in tillage since the first of Henry VIII. It does 

 not appear, however, that the culture of hops pro- 

 ceeded very rapidly at first; for so late as the 

 reign of queen Elizabeth they were fetched in con- 

 siderable quantities from the Low Countries. But 

 from an act of parliament in the year 1603, it 

 seems that hops were then cultivated in great 

 abundance. 



Hop-plantations require some years to come to 

 perfection, and it is rarely considered advisable to 

 take any produce from them the first year after 

 they are formed, as by this means great detriment 

 is likely to be done to the future produce 1 which 

 they should afford. There are modes of planting, 

 however, (as in Suffolk,) which render the prac- 

 tice of taking produce in the first season not in- 

 jurious. Also when bedded or root sets have been 

 used in planting, a small produce may safely be 

 taken in the first season, as such plants are then 

 as forward as those from cuttings in the second 

 season. 



The time of hop-gathering is a season of great 

 animation and interest, and the motley groups that 

 assemble to this labour are most amusing. The 

 proper time for gathering the hops is indicated by 

 their giving a strong scent, and the seeds becoming 

 firm and of a brown colour. This usually happens 

 early in September. 



