218 AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 



sustain themselves. They may be confined with rushes, tough 

 grass, or more easily with wooolen yarn. This operation is 

 needed again in a few days to secure such as may have got 

 loose by the winds or other causes, and to train up the new 

 shoots. 



THE GATHERING of hops should be when they have acquired 

 a strong scent, at which time the seed becomes firm and brovm 

 and the lowest leaves begin to change color. This precedes 

 the frosts in September. The vines must first be cut at the sur- 

 face of the ground and the poles pulled up and laid in conveni- 

 ent piles, when they may be stripped of the hops, which are 

 thrown into large, light baskets. Or the poles may be laid on 

 long, slender boxes with handles at each end, (to admit of being 

 carried by two persons,) and as the hops are stripped they fall 

 into the box. But care must be taken that they be free from 

 leaves, stems and dirt. 



The hops should be hilled or covered with compost and all 

 the vines removed in the fall. The following spring when the 

 ground is dry, the surface is scraped from the hill, or additional 

 compost is added, when a plow is run on four sides as near as 

 possible without injury to the plants. All the running roots 

 are laid bare and cut with a sharp knife within 2 or 3 inches of 

 the main root and the latter are trimmed if spreading too far. 

 It is well to break or twist down the first shoots and allow those 

 which succeed to run, as they are likely to be more productive. 

 Cutting should be avoided unless in a sunny day, as the profuse 

 bleeding injures them. The poles will keep longer under cover. 



CURING OR DRYING. This is an important operation and 

 it may be done by spreading the hops thinly in the shade and 

 stirring them often enough to prevent heating. But when 

 there is a large quantity they can only be safely cured in a 

 kiln. The following mode is recommended by Mr. Blanchard 

 in the New England Farmer: 



"Much depends on having a well-constructed kiln. For 

 the convenience of putting the hops on the kiln, the side of 

 a hill is generally chosen for its situation. Care, should be 

 taken that it be a dry situation. The kiln should be dug out 

 the same bigness at the bottom as at the top ; the side walls 

 laid up perpendicularly, and filled in solid with stone, to <;i\< 

 it a tunnel form. Twelve feet square at the top, two feet 

 square at the bottom, and at least eight feet deep, is deemed 

 a convenient size. On the top of the walls sills are laid, 

 having joists let into them in like manner as for laying a 

 floor ; on which laths, about one and a half inches wide arc 



