CULTIVATION. 215 



the departure was from one extreme to the other. De 

 Dombasle's wire frame was of the low type, and this was 

 followed by high-frame systems for the most part, which 

 in turn gradually decreased in size (Jourdeuil, Erhardt, 

 Wirth systems). 



The chief advocate of low frames was Hermann,^ a hop- 

 grower at Ottmarsheim, who, in projecting a somewhat 

 modified method of cultivation, introduced an 80-inch wire 

 frame, which seemed at first destined to change the whole 

 course of the hop-growing industry. Its advantages had, 

 however, been- overestimated, the hop plant not submitting 

 to such a "straight waistcoat" method of treatment with- 

 out undergoing deterioration. 



The construction of the Hermann frame (Fig. 57) is as 

 follows : — 



The posts are of iron, set in stone sockets or brickwork. 

 Those on the outside all round are set on the slope, and, 

 being the main support of the frame, are made of X-section 

 bar iron, while those in the interior of the garden are 

 upright and of circular section, old iron gas-pipes being 

 suitable when such can be procured. 



Diagonally over the heads of the side posts run the' cross 

 wires, which are anchored firmly in the ground at each end, 

 and are provided with eyelets for supporting the head wires. 

 The interior posts are erected in such a manner that, taken 

 in a diagonal direction, they come in every fourth row, and 

 at every fourth or fifth stock in the row. Like the cross 

 wires, the longitudinal head wires, passing over the heads 

 of the end posts, are also anchored in the ground. 



Each row of plants corresponds to two rows of equi- 

 distant head wires, which in the original construction — 



1 Hermann also experimented with a frame only 40 inches high. Beob- 

 achtungen tiber die Cultur des Hopfens im Jahre 1884, Pott and Kraus 

 (Munich, 1886). 



