MISCELLANEOUS CROPS 649 



short-time arrangement and by selling to the consumer on terms to 

 suit his convenience. 



Although much significance is commonly attached to the local- 

 ity in which the hops are produced, it is apparent that too much em- 

 phasis is laid on geographical origin as a standard of quality. It 

 has been repeatedly demonstrated that dealers and consumers can 

 not tell with certainty the section of the country a sample comes 

 from by examination alone. Even samples from the same yard, 

 when the conditions of drying have differed somewhat, have been 

 ascribed to widely different sections by expert judges of hops. 



The price which a consumer will pay for hops depends largely 

 on their origin, thus making it frequently possible to deliver hops 

 grown in one section when tne sale was made on hops from another 

 which commanded a different price. Unfortunately, there is no 

 definite standard of quality in judging hops, and there is apparently 

 too much importance attached to origin alone. While geographic 

 origin may be of some importance, its usefulness as a standard of 

 quality is small compared with the tests usually applied in judging 

 me value of hops. In determining the relative quality of different 

 lots of hops a fixed standard of valuation founded on intrinsic qual- 

 ities rather than preference would be exceedingly valuable to both 

 producer and consumer. 



The present unsatisfactory conditions of marketing offer oppor- 

 tunities for improvement along several lines. One of the greatest 

 needs of the hop industry is more complete and accessible statistics of 

 production and consumption, not only that growers may govern their 

 acreage by the prospective demand, but that, by knowing the amount 

 consumed during the current year, the stocks remaining in the 

 hands of consumers, and the crop conditions at home and abroad, 

 an intelligent opinion may be formed as to the probable relation be- 

 tween supply and demand and what prices may therefore be reason- 

 ably expected. From the returns made by the officers of the Internal 

 Revenue Service a quarterly statement would show the total amount 

 of hops consumed, and from the consumption its increase or de- 

 crease the market possibilities could be inferred. Also the neces- 

 sity is very great for frequent reliable statements of European crop 

 conditions. The hop market is controlled by the production in the 

 United States, England, Germany, and Austria; and, since the sur- 

 plus production of the United States is exported almost entirely to 

 England, crop conditions abroad practically control American prices. 

 More reliable and detailed statistics of home production are needed. 

 So many exaggerated reports are circulated for the purpose of in- 

 fluencing the market that an exact census of the acreage set out, the 

 acreage harvested, and the number of bales produced would be of 

 incalculable benefit to the producer; and this end would be much 

 furthered by thorough cooperation on the part of the hop growers 

 themselves. 



On the Pacific coast several hop growers' associations have been 

 organized along similar lines and with the same general purpose as 

 the citrus growers' associations and others in Southern California. 

 Other organizations modeled along the lines of the hop growers' 



