260 
Hop Cultivation. 
but practical Worcester planters say that a crop of 8 cwt. per 
acre now costs from 30Z. to 35 1. 
Annual Average Cost of an Acre of Hop Land. 
£ . d. 
Manure (winter and summer) . . . . 6 10 0 
Digging 0 19 0 
Dressing (or cutting) 0 0 0 
Poling, tying, earthing, ladder-tying, stringing, 
lewing . . . . . . .230 
Shimming, nidgetting, digging round and hoeing 
hills 3 0 0 
Stacking, stripping, making bines, &c. . . 0 17 0 
Annual renewal of poles 2 10 0 
Expense of picking, drying, packing, carriage, 
sampling, sale, &c., &c., of an average crop, 
of, say, 7 cwt. per acre . . . . 10 5 0 
Rent, rates, taxes, repairs of oast and tacks, 
interest on capital 6 0 0 
Sulphuring 10 0 
Washing, say 1 10 0 
Total . . . . £35 0 0 
Profits and Prospects. 
Hop farming is a most speculative business, on account of 
the precarious character of the crop, and the heavy expenses 
connected with its production, as well as the peculiar 
fluctuations of the hop market, due in a great degree to the 
unsatisfactory practice of the chief part of the crop being sold 
by the growers in October and November, through factors, to a 
very limited number of hop merchants. These are, as a rule, 
men of large capital, and are able by action or inaction to 
influence materially the prices of hops, to some extent irrespec- 
tive of the positions of supply based on production, and demand 
based on the actual requirements for consumption. The growers 
in these circumstances frequently will not take prices thus offered, 
and in many cases miss the market, and have to take much 
lower rates later on. 
Sometimes large profits are made — of from 50Z. even to 100Z. 
per acre — by fortunate individuals or good managers, who have 
grown large crops in seasons when the general yield has been 
short. Upon the whole, taking the average of the past few 
years, hop growers have fared better than other agricul- 
turists, and it seems probable that hop growing will continue to 
be remunerative if the growers do not extend their acreages 
beyond their capital and plant hops in unsuitable land, and if the 
foreign importations do not materially increase. The importa- 
