I 84 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



While the tall straight poles stand firmly in the 

 ground and are covered with hops reaching out 

 branches from the main vines in every direction, 

 there is a look of insecurity, making one expectant 

 of the poles being leveled to the ground with their 

 heavy burden by the strong winds which pass over 

 the country. With the trellis there seems ample 

 support in the strong cord or twine and wire, and 

 the wind simply produces gentle swayings of the 

 vines. 



Mr. J. Carmichael, the superintendent, has had 

 much experience in hop-raising in the Kent district, 

 England, and in the Yakima country, Washington. 

 He does not hesitate in saying that his present loca- 

 tion is the best for hops of any country he knows of. 

 The soil is excellently adapted to the culture, while 

 the arid and hot atmosphere of this valley, with 

 plenty of water to irrigate, produces the very best 

 results, not only in quantity but in quality, while a 

 very important feature is the fact that no insects 

 trouble the plants, and there will be no red rust, 

 which in moist climates is so common and will en- 

 tirely destroy a crop in a few hours. 



The dry and storage house is not a very expensive 

 affair. It is a frame structure about 80x60 feet in 

 all. The drying rooms, or "kilns,' 1 consist of three 

 rooms in each, at which are located stoves, fed from 

 outside, and supplied with large flues or pipes to 

 carry heated gases and produce the required tem- 

 perature in the room. This is regulated by means of 

 openings around the bottom of the room. This heat 

 passes upward through hops spread on the floor of 

 the second story, thence along with moisture out 

 through a dome extending above the root. The up- 

 per floor is made of slats, leaving half the space open, 

 except that canvas is spread over it for the hops to 

 rest on. After drying, the hops are dropped into a 

 room off to the rear side of the dryers and then put 

 into bales. During drying, sulphur is burned in the 

 room below to the extent of bleaching the hops as 

 desired. 



Picking and drying began in early September. The 

 regulation price of one cent per pound of green hops 

 was paid for picking. Women and children make 

 the best pickers, earning the best wages. Since the 

 shrinkage in drying requires four pounds green to 

 make one pound dried hops, this item of picking alone 

 costs four cents per pound, while all other expense 

 connected with hop raising is about five cents. The 

 cost of production, including marketing, is estimated 

 at nine cents per pound. These estimates are on 

 cost of production in Washington and California, 

 where the average yield is about three-fourths of a 

 ton per acre. Wherever this is increased to one ton 

 or a ton and a half, as is promised in the Payette 

 country, the cost per pound is very materially less- 

 ened. The Golding company, with its thirty-three 

 bearing hops and ten acres more planted last spring 

 and which will bear the first crop next season, has 

 employed two men this season to cultivate the vines, 

 that is, to plough the ground and keep clean; ten 

 men for two months to string and prune the vines. 

 This makes for the year an equal of forty-four months' 

 labor at $30 per month and board. Besides this there 

 is the superintendent and probably one other man 

 in constant employ, while the picking is all contract 

 work and lasts only three or four weeks each season. 

 The picking season requires 120 to 150 persons, men, 

 women and children. Pickers congregate and camp 

 near the hop fields, and besides earning good wages 

 during the few weeks and at the pleasantest season of 

 the year, enjoy the novelties of out-door work, camp 

 life and real picnicking such as will enable hop rais- 

 ers in this district to get all the help they require. 

 When this locality is well dotted with hop farms, if 

 there are not enough pickers to be secured in the 

 near country, producers can draw from the cities, 

 but there will always be plenty labor obtainable of 

 this class. The rich soil and dry, warm atmosphere, 

 with plenty of water and fine system of irrigation al- 

 ready supplied, will make hop culture here one of the 

 greatest industries in southwestern Idaho. 



A VIEW OF THE CAREY LAW. 



THE RESPONSIBLE TASK CONFRONTING WYOMING LEGISLATORS. 



BY J. A. BRECKONS. 



"W 



HOEVER can make two ears of corn or two 

 blades of grass to grow on a spot of ground 

 where only one grew before deserves better of man- 

 kind and does more essential service to his country 

 than all the whole race of politicians put together. 1 ' 



Accepting this ancient proverb as a truth, the next 

 legislature of Wyoming, which convenes in January, 

 has an opportunity to win undying fame or unending 

 infamy, for its action in dealing with the gift, under 

 the Carey Land Bill, of a million acres of government 



