324 



Cultivation of the Hop. 



Vol. X. 



straight rows. The most durable timber for 

 poles is that of the Spanish Chesnut. 



"The after culture of the hop consists in 

 stirring the soil, and keeping it free from 

 weeds: in guiding the shoots to the poles, 

 and sometimes tying them for that purpose 

 with bass or withered rushes ; in eradicating 

 any superfluous shoots which may rise from 

 the root, and in raising a small heap of earth 

 over the root to nourish the plant. 



" Hops are known to be ready for gathering 

 when the chaffy capsules acquire a brown 

 colour, and a firm consistence. Each chaffy 

 capsule, or leaf calyx, contains one seed. 

 Before these are picked, she stalks are de- 

 tached, and the poles pulled up, and placed 

 horizontally on frames of wood, two or three 

 poles at a time. The hops are then picked 

 off by women and children. After being 

 carefully separated from the leaves and 

 stalks, they are dropped into a large cloth 

 hung all round within the frame on tenter 

 hooks. When the cloth is full, the hops are 

 emptied into a large sack, which is carried 

 home, and the hops laid on a kiln to be dri- 

 ed. This is always to be done as soon as 

 possible after they are picked, or they are 

 apt to sustain considerable damage, both in 

 colour and flavour, if allowed to remain long 

 in the green state in which they are picked. 

 In very warm weather, and when they are 

 picked in a moist state, they will often heat 

 in five or six hours; for this reason, the kilns 

 are kept constantly at work, both night and 

 day, from the commencement to the conclu- 

 sion of the hop-picking season. 



" The operation of drying hops is not ma- 

 terially different from that of drying malt, 

 and the kilns are of the same construction. 

 The hops are spread on a hair cloth, from 

 eight to twelve inches deep, according as the 

 season is dry or wet, and the hops ripe or 

 immature. When the ends of the hop stalks 

 become quite shrivelled and dry, they are 

 taken off the kiln, and laid on a boarded 

 floor till they become quite cool, when they 

 are put into bags. 



" The bagging of hops is thus performed : 

 in the floor of the room where hops are laid 

 to cool, there is a round hole or trap, equal 

 in size to the mouth of a hop-bag. After 

 tying a handful of hops in each of the lower 

 corners of a large bag, which serve after for 

 handles, the mouth of the bag is fixed se- 

 curely to a strong hoop, which is made to 

 rest on the edges of the hole or trap ; and 

 the bag itself being then dropped through 

 the hole, the packers go into it, when a per- 

 son who attends for the purpose, puts in the 

 hops in small quantities, in order to give the 

 packer an opportunity of packing and tramp- 

 ling them as hard as possible. When the 



bag is filled, and the hops trampled in so 

 hard that it will hold no more, it is drawn 

 up, unloosed from the hoop, and the end 

 sewed up, two other handles having been 

 previously formed in the corners in the man- 

 ner mentioned above. The brightest and 

 finest coloured hops are put into pockets or 

 fine bagging, and the brown into coare or 

 heavy bagging. The former are chiefly 

 used for brewing fine ale, and the latter by 

 the porter brewers. But when hops are in- 

 tended to be kept two or three years, they 

 are put into bags of strong cloth, and firmly 

 pressed so as to exclude the air. 



"The stripping and stacking of the poles 

 succeed to the operation of picking. The 

 shoot or bind being stripped off, such poles 

 as are not decayed, are set up together in a 

 conical pile of three or four hundred, the 

 centre of which is formed by three stout 

 poles bound together a few feet from their 

 tops, and their lower ends spread out. 



" The produce of no crop is so liable to va- 

 riation as that of the hop ; in a good season 

 an acre will produce 20 cwt. but from 10 to 

 12 cwt. is considered a tolerable average 

 crop. The quality of hops is estimated by 

 the abundance or scarcity of an unctuous 

 clammy powder which adheres to them, and 

 by their bright yellow colour. The expen- 

 ses of forming a hop plantation are consid- 

 erable; but once in bearing, it will continue 

 so for ten or fifteen years before it requires 

 to be renewed. The hop is peculiarly liable 

 to diseases ; when young it is devoured by 

 fleas of different kinds ; at a more advanced 

 stage, it is attacked by the green fly, red 

 spider, and ottermoth, the larvae of which 

 prey even upon the roots. The honey-dew 

 often materially injures the hop crop; and 

 the mould, the fire-blast, and other blights, 

 injure it at different times towards the latter 

 period of the growth of the plant." 



The culture of hops is becoming an im- 

 portant branch of husbandry in the State of 

 New York.* A correspondent observes, that 

 " as fine samples have been grown in Orange 

 and Madison counties as in any part of the 

 world. The hop is considered somewhat 

 precarious ; but when the season is good, the 

 profit is very great. The average product 

 may be stated at 700 lbs., though it has 

 reached 1600 lbs. to the acre ; and in the 

 latter case the expense amounted to sixty 

 dollars. The ordinary, or average price, 

 may be stated at eighteen cents per pound. 

 The profits on an ordinary crop, according 

 to these assumed data, would be about seven- 



* Gurdon Avery, in the village of Waterloo, Oneida 

 Co., New York, is said to have raised in 184'2 on twelve 

 acres of land, 09,937 lbs. of hops. 



