The Hop. 437 
Hops are a valuable plant, and are extensively cultivated for 
the flowers, which give flavor and permanence to beer, by 
being boiled with the wort in brewing. They impart a pleasant, 
bitter, and aromatic flavor, and prevent the too rapid progress of 
fermentation. Beer which is well hopped, will keep long and 
become very fine without any of those artificial means of fining 
which make the common brewer's beer so much inferior in quality 
to that which is home-brewed. 
The land should be naturally rich, or made so, by well rotted 
manure, lime, and ashes. Chemistry informs the practical farmer 
that the hop blossom (strobulus,) and bitter elements [lupulin) 
abound in salt-petre, or nitrate of potash; while long experience 
teaches him that this plant grows most luxuriously in a soil about 
as rich as an old nitre bed near a stable or barn-yard can make it 
In England the gronnd is often trenched, and the excavation filled 
with compost, that the roots may go deep, and imbibe their ap- 
propriate nourishment from a large surface. Deep, and thorough 
plowing, are indispensable. A side hill, or a southern exposure 
should be selected if practicable. — Gen. Farmer. 
The roots are perennial, and will live and bear annual crops 
for many years with good culture, and good luck. They are 
usually planted in rows six feet apart either way, and from four 
to six inches deep. They are cut from the hills of old plants, 
where roots have been laid bare by the plow. The portions 
planted should contain one or two eyes, of which eight or ten are 
enough for a hill. They should be well separated on the ground, 
that is, placed a foot apart, that the future roots may have room, 
and easily spread in all directions. No poles are needed the first 
season, and a hoed crop may be grown on the land, which should be 
kept clean and in good tilth. In November, the ground should be 
plowed and the earth turned towards the hills. Early in the spring 
the hillocks are opened, and the last year's shoots cut ofl^ within an 
inch of the main stem; and all the suckers quite close to it. Two 
or three substantial poles, from 16 to 25 feet in length, should be 
firmly set with an iron bar in each hill. When the plant has 
grown three oi' four feet, it should be trained and tied to the pole 
below the third set of leaves, and started in its windings upward 
in the direction of the sun. Care should be taken not to let too 
many vines grow from a hill as their foliage will shade the blos- 
soms and greatly injure their fruitfulness. Two or three vines to 
a pole are enough. Some hop-growers allow only one vine to a 
pole. Hops are plowed and hoed in this state like corn. 
The hop, as every one knows, is a slender, climbing plant, 
which requires careful cultivation. It is very tender and the pro- 
duce is precarious, sometimes giving great profit to the grower, 
and at other times failing altogether. It is very liable to diseases; 
