CULTIVATION. 165 



In many districts, particularly in the south, endeavour 

 is made, by all available means, to obtain a very early crop, 

 so as to have the first parcel of produce ip the market, 

 because prices are then more favourable. In other places 

 attention is bestowed on the production of a superior article 

 rich in lupulin, owing to the absence of a market for inferior 

 grades ; and in others again the main point kept in view is 

 abundance, there being little difference of quality obtainable 

 throughout the district. 



Manuring. 



An examination of the various opinions now prevaihng 

 on the subject of manuring hops will reveal that, although 

 considerable divergences exist with regard to the quantity 

 of manure and the method of application, all experts agree 

 in considering stall manure and compost the best fertilisers 

 for hops. Here and there the use of artificial manures for 

 hops is customary to a variable extent — results of a few 

 exact experiments on hop manuring have been pubHshed — 

 nevertheless the practice is not so far very widespread. The 

 reason for this is primarily that, with hops more so than any 

 other cultivated plants, the influence of the manure on the 

 quahty as well as on the weight of the crop has to be con- 

 sidered ; and it is precisely this condition that so greatly 

 comphcates the attainment of lucid results, because, up to 

 the present, the proper key to judging the quality of hops 

 has not been discovered, a very wide margin being left to 

 individual opinion. Furthermore, the hop is a plant exposed 

 -to such numerous accidents-and dangers affecting the amount 

 and quahty of the crop that the results of even the most 

 accurately performed experiments are easily rendered 

 nugatory by some circumstance or other. Only in normal 

 years can one hope to gain any clear idea of the effect of the 

 various fertilisers on hops. 



