468 Investigations upon the Growth of Hops. 



the plant, and will spread thence and ruin the crop if not 

 dealt with. The " mould " or hop mildew, the other great 

 scourge of the plant, is very likely to begin among the 

 shaded, and therefore soft, lower growth, for the spores 

 hibernate in the ground, and thence take their rise. Another 

 result of the stripping is the admittance of more sun and 

 the freer circulation of air at ground level, thus in showery 

 seasons a better tilth can be maintained, and there is less 

 danger of mould. 



With all these advantages it appeared probable that on 

 occasion the plant received a serious check from stripping ; 

 the removal of so large a proportion of the active leaf surface, 

 busily engaged at the time in drawing nutrition from the 

 atmosphere, might so check the development that a loss of 

 crop would follow. To test this question, certain portions of 

 the Wye garden have been stripped as usual for the last four 

 seasons, unstripped areas being left alongside for comparison, 

 and the hops on each portion separately weighed at 

 harvest. The character of the past four seasons has been 

 such as to give this experiment a very convincing trial ; 

 there have been two seasons of scanty growth, 1898 and 1900, 

 yielding little more than half (he crop attained in the follow- 

 ing big years, 1899 an d 1901. It was found that in the years 

 of vigorous development, when the big crops were grown, the 

 stripping caused no loss of crop, for the plant grew away 

 without being affected by the operation. In the short years, 

 however, the stripping caused a loss of crop, for the plant was 

 unable to recover from the check it had received. The 

 following table shows the comparative crop on the stripped 

 and unstripped plots, the average crop yielded by the garden 

 in each year being also appended. There was no measurable 



Year. 



Date of Stripping. 



Unstripped. 



Stripped. 



Average Crop. 













Cwis. per acre. 



1898 



July 5th 



100 





93 



1 1 -9 



1899 



June 24th 



TOO 





IOO 



20"I 



1900 



July 3rd 



IOO 





77 



IO - 4 



1901 



June 25th 



IOO 





IOO 



20 - 9 



difference between the plots in 1899 and 1901, when the crop 

 was over a ton per acre ; there was a loss on the stripped plot 



