290 CULTURE OF THE TEASEL. 



them. Subsequently these straggling vines are broken off, if they are not wanted ; four only 

 are allowed to grow. The hop will require to be hoed five times in the season, as it must be 

 kept free from weeds, which in no case should be allowed to ripen in the field and scatter their 

 seeds. The best wood for poles is white cedar, and should be two and a half or three inches 

 in diameter : they cost from ten to twelve dollars per hundred. 



The time for picking the hop is when the plant is in full blossom, as the aroma and medicinal 

 properties of the hop are in full perfection at this time. To secure the crop in this condition 

 is a great desideratum, hence many hands are required at this moment, or in this stage of 

 growth. The work is usually performed by females ; it requires neatness and dispatch, as no 

 leaves or vines should be mixed with the hop. To secure these ends large wooden boxes are 

 provided, with four arms and four equal compartments, into which the hop is thrown. 



After the hop is picked, it is carried to the drying house, where it is subjected to a tempera- 

 ture sufficiently high for a rapid drying ; the building should be two stories, the upper one for 

 spreading the hops, the lower for furnaces ; the furnaces are constructed like a large oven, and 

 with a flue which opens upward, and spreading out like a large hopper, so that the hot air may 

 communicate, by radiation, with the hops above. The floor should be covered with open 

 netted cloth or hemp, with meshes one-twelfth of an inch in diameter ; upon the meshes the 

 hops are spread four or five inches thick The heat is attained from maple coal, which is used 

 at the rate of one or two shovels full at a time, in each of the furnaces. One layer of hops is 

 dried in twenty-four hours. The hops are then ready for packing in bags of cotton, forming 

 bales like those used for cotton. 



Another kind of labor in the field is yet required, viz. the preservation of the poles ; these 

 require to be stacked and bound up together in a standing position, else, if suffered to lie upon 

 the ground, are speedily lost, or ruined. Hops have been sold in market for twenty-five cents 

 per pound : of late they bring from seven to ten cents. Hops might be cultivated for an in- 

 definite period upon the same ground, were it not for the larva of an insect, which finally in- 

 fests the roots to such an extent that the plant is destroyed. 



CULTURE OF THE TEASEL. 



The Teasel {Dipsacus) is an important part of the apparatus for dressing cloth, and is so 

 necessary that the work can not be performed properly without it, and it is a curious fact that 

 no instrument has yet been invented which can supply its place. The adaptation of the teasel 

 to the office to which it is put is due to the hooked termination of the chaff upon the teasel 

 heads, which are bent outwards. The points of the hooks are exceeding fine, elastic and tough, 

 but not rough ; and hence their adaptation to the raising of^a nap upon woolen cloth. The 

 plant belongs to a great and natural family of plants, which have received the name of Com- 

 posite, in systematic botany. The plant is biennial and bears frost well. It is not difficult to 

 cultivate it, but the land must not be rich. The quality of the teasel is best upon the poorer 

 ■tiffish clay soils. The ground is to be broken up in the spring ; the seed is sown in drills. 



