66 HOPS. 



use (as they are in Eussia to this day), still the quality is so 

 inferior that it can no longer comply with the present-day 

 requirements of the brewer. The latter insists' upon an 

 excellent aromatic article, to produce which it is not 

 .sufficient to merely cultivate the hop as such, but a suitable 

 climate and soil must be selected, these being very im- 

 portant factors influencing the success attained. Just as 

 the champagne vine will only develop its true qualities under 

 definite conditions of soil and climate, and loses them in 

 part or altogether when transferred to other localities, so it 

 is with the hop ; and it may be asserted that scarcely any 

 other cultivated plant reacts so rapidly and decidedly on an 

 altered environment as this one does. 



The peculiar property of the hop plant in yielding a valu- 

 able product only under certain well-defined conditions is 

 the cause of the somewhat isolated position of the various 

 hop districts, without however implying that no other places 

 would be suitable for the same purpose. 



If we examine the requirements of the hop plant in 

 respect of climate we find that moisture and warmth in- 

 fluence the welfare and quality of the hop in the highest 

 degree, though it is not so much the amount of warmth and 

 moisture as their distribution over the individual monthly 

 stages of growth that is of the most importance. Where 

 favourable conditions for the plant to flourish are not 

 present from the outset it is only a waste of trouble to 

 endeavour to produce hops that shall be fit for use, the 

 artificial aids at man's disposal being too slight to render 

 their use of any avail in attempting to defy Nature, and 

 produce firuits whose development depends on factors which 

 man is only competent to influence and control within very 

 narrow hmits indeed. 



Speaking generally, it may be said that the hop does not 

 require so much warmth as the vine. Given a mean summer 



