380 



HOPS 



HOPS 



Literature. 



M. Molliard, Experimental Investigations on 

 Hemp, Bui. Soc. Bot., France, 50, 1903; Viner, 

 Experiments with Hemp, Khozyaene, 1901, No. 47, 

 48; Rev. in Zhur. Opuitn. Agron. (Jour. Bxpt. 

 Landw.), 3 (1902), No. 2, pp 248-249 ; Dewey, The 

 Hemp Industry in the United States, United States 

 Department of Agriculture, Yearbook 1901, pp. 

 541-554; Boyce, Hemp, — a Practical Trea- 

 tise on the Culture of Hemp for Seed and 

 Fiber, with a Sketch of the History and 

 Nature of the Hemp Plant, Orange Judd 

 Company, New York, 1900. 



HOPS. Humulus Lupuhis, Linn. 

 Urticacece. Figs. 572-576. 



in extremely hot weather, sometimes increasing in 

 length as much as a foot a day. The stems cling 

 closely to a pole or string and, when once well 

 started, will follow it with very little trouble. The 

 growth is almost wholly increase in length until 

 the beginning of the flowering period (mid-July in 



By Jared Van Wagenen, Jr. 



A perennial twining herb produ- 

 cing burs or "hops" that are used in 

 the making of beer. It has long 

 shoots often reaching twenty-five to 

 thirty feet in a season; rough hairy, 

 the stems having minute prickles 

 pointing downward ; leaves ovate 

 or orbicular-ovate in general outline, 

 deeply three-lobed (sometimes five- 

 to seven-lobed), or the upper ones not lobed ; mar- 

 gins strongly and uniformly dentate ; petioles long; 

 staminate flowers in panicles two to six inches 

 long ; hops (mature pistillate catkins) oblong or 

 ovoid, loose and papery, straw-yellow, often two 

 inches or more long, glandular and odoriferous. 

 The hop has a tough, fibrous inner bark and a color- 

 less juice which makes an 

 indelible stain on white 

 fabrics. The stems climb 

 as much as thirty feet high 

 by the beginning of the 

 flowering period, lengthen- 

 ing from a well-marked 

 terminal "head," and nor- 

 mally twining by rotating 

 spirally around their sup- 

 ports, "clock-wise" or "fol- 

 lowing the sun." The hop 

 is dioecious, i. e., the pistil- 

 late and staminate flowers 

 are borne on separate 

 plants. The fruit may be 

 regarded as a compact cat- 

 kin, largely made up of the 

 axis together with the 

 large foliaceous bracts, 

 each of which is covered 

 at its base by a yellow, 

 granular, resin-like mate- 

 rial called lupulin. This is 

 the essential principle in 

 the hop, and imparts the 

 bitter taste to beer. There 

 are also a few seeds, although seed-production is 

 irregular and scanty, a large proportion of the fer- 

 tile flowers failing to mature seed. The plant is 

 unusually drought-resistant and grows most rapidly 



'*V. 



f Fig. 572. Hop. 



'^^i Staminate or male flower cluster 

 and individual flower. 



Pig. 573. Hop. Pistillate 

 flowers in clusters or 

 catkins, and an indi- 

 vidual flower. 



New York), after which short compound lateral 

 branches are thrown out from the axils of the 

 leaves, on which the flowers appear and the plant 

 ceases to "run." Botanically, the hop is closely 

 related to hemp and is included in the great nettle 

 family. 



Geographical distribution. 



There are few plants that are more widely grown 

 than the hop. It is native in Europe and is 

 reported from practically every European country 

 and from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Tas- 

 mania and other countries. In the United States, 

 where it has been an important crop in certain 

 sections for at least a century, its commercial pro- 

 duction is limited to four states, in the order named: 

 Oregon, California, New York and Washington, 

 although at times it has been grown in Wisconsin, 

 Michigan and Vermont. The relative importance 

 of the crop in New York seems to be on the decline 

 while it is increasing in the West, owing to the 

 better climatic conditions and cheaper methods of 

 production. The wild form of the plant, which dif- 

 fers considerably from the cultivated hop, although 

 easily recognizable, is found along certain alluvial 

 creek-bottoms of the northeastern United States. 



The United States Department of Agriculture 

 makes no official estimate of production, but by 

 the best obtainable statistics, in the five years 

 ending with 1905, the total production of the 

 United States has ranged between 39,000,000 and 

 51,000,000 pounds. In the same series of years 

 about 20 per cent of the crop has been exported. 

 The United States returns less than one-fifth of the 

 world's total production. 



Culture. 



Soils. — The hop seems to adapt itself readily to 

 a wide variety of soils, provided only that they are 

 well drained. In parts of the East it is grown 



