18 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
charcoal, on a kiln covered wih hair cloth, in the manner of a malt 
kiln.* The fire must be kept steady and equal, and the hops stirred 
gently. Great attention is necessary in this part of the business, 
that the hops may be uniformly and sufficiently dried : if too much 
dried they will look brown, as if they were burned ; and if too lit¬ 
tle dried, they will lose their colour and flavor. They should be laid 
on the hair cloth about six inches thick, after it has been moderately 
warmed ; then a steady fire kept up till the hops are nearly dry, lest 
the moisture or sweat, which the fire has raised, should fall back and 
change their colour. Alter the liops have been in this situation se¬ 
ven, eight, or nine hours, and have got a thorough sweating, and 
when struck with a stick, will leap up, then throw them into a heap ; 
mix them well and spread them again, and let them remain till they 
are all equally dry. While they are in the sweat, it will be best not 
to move them, for fear of burning them. Slacken the fire when the 
hops are to be turned, and increase it afterwards. Hops are fully 
dried when their stalks break short, and their leaves are crisp and 
fall off easily. They will crackle a little when their leaves are 
bursting; and then they must be taken from the kiln. Hops that 
are dried in the sun, lose their rich flavor, and if under cover, they 
are apt to ferment and change with the weather, and lose their 
strength. Fire preserves the colour and flavor ot hops, by evaporat¬ 
ing the water, and retaining the oil of the hop. After the hops are 
taken from the kiln, they should be laid in a heap, to acquire a little 
moisture, to fit them for bagging. It would be well to exclude them 
from the air, by covering them with blankets. Three or four days 
will be sufficient for them to lie in that state. When the hops are 
so moist as to be pressed together without breaking, they are fit for 
bagging. Bags made of coarse linen cloth, eleven feet in length, 
and seven in circumference, which hold two hundred pounds weight, 
are most commonly used in Europe; but any size that best suits 
may be made use of. To bag hops, a hole is made through a floor 
large enough for a man to pass with ease; the bag must be fasten¬ 
ed to a loop larger than the hole, that the floor may serve to sup¬ 
port the bag, and for the convenience of handling the bag, some 
loops should be tied in each corner to serve as handles. The hops 
should be gradually thrown into the bag, and trod down continual¬ 
ly till the bag is filled. The mouth of the bag must then be sewed 
up, and the hops are fit for market. The harder hops are packed, 
the longer and better they will keep; but they must be kept dry. 
In most parts of Great Britain where hops are cultivated, they esti¬ 
mate the charges of cultivating an acre of hops at forty-two dollars, 
for manuring and tilling, exclusive of poles and rent of land. Poles 
they estimate at sixteen dollars per year; but in this country they 
would not amount to half that sum. An acre is computed to require 
about three thousand poles, which will last from six to twelve years, 
according to the kind of wood used. 
The English growers of hops think they have a very indifferent 
crop, if the produce of an acre does not sell for an hundred and thir¬ 
ty-three dollars, and it frequently sells for two hundred dollars, and 
has been known to rise as high as four hundred dollars. In this 
country experiments have been equally flattering. A gentleman in 
Massachusetts, in the summer of 1801, raised hops from one acre of 
ground that sold for three hundred dollars ; and land is equally good 
for hops in this state. Upon the lowest estimate, we may fairly 
compute the nett profit of an acre of hops to be eighty dollars, over 
and above poles, manure and cultivation.— Tr. Ag. Soc. N. Y. 
The produce of the hop crop is liable to a very considerable vari- 
tion, according to soil and season, from two or three to so much as 
twenty hundred weight; but from nine to ten, on middling soils, in 
tolerable seasons, are considered as average crops, and twelve or 
fourteen as good ones. Bannister asserts, that sixty bushels of fresh 
gathered hops, if fully ripe, and not injured by the fly or other acci¬ 
dent, will, when dried and bagged, produce a hundred weight. When 
the hops are much eaten by the flea, a disaster which often befals 
them, the sample is not only reduced in value, but the weight dimin¬ 
ished ; so that, when the misfortune occurs, the planter experiences 
a twofold loss. 
To judge of the quality of hops, as the chief virtue resides in the 
yellow powder contained in them, which is termed the condition 
and is of an unctuous and clammy nature, the more or less clammy 
the sample appears to be, the value will be increased or diminished 
in the opinion of the buyer. To this may be added the colour, which 
* Mats made of the splinters of Walnut, or rush, will answer the purpose 
and come cheaper than hair cloth. 
it is of very material consequence for the planter to preserve as 
bright as possible, since the purchaser will insist much on this arti¬ 
cle ; though perhaps the brightest coloured hops are not always the 
best flavored. 
The duration of the hop plantation on good soil, may be from fifteen 
to thirty years ; but in general they begin to decline about the tenth. 
Some advise that the plantation should be destroyed, and a fresh 
one made elsewhere; other consider it the best plan to break up 
and plant a portion of new ground every two years, letting an equal 
quantity ef the old be destroyed, as in this way a regular succession 
of good plantation will be kept up at a trifling charge.— Enc. of Ag, 
GO TO WORK THE RIGHT WAY. 
Addressed to Farmers . 
I am sorry there is so much need of the admonitions I am about 
to give. Depend upon it, you do not “ work it right,” or you would 
make your farms just twice as valuable as they now are. Many of 
you farm too much. You would find it much more profitable to farm 
twenty acres well, than forty by halves. The last season, I made 
my grounds produce at the rate of one hundred bushels of Indian 
corn to the acre. Is this not much better than a common crop of 
j thirty or forty bushels'? You will certainly say it is, and with the 
same breath ask how I manage to make it produce so plentifully 1 
My land being much infested with ground mice, or moles, and over¬ 
run with grubs and other vermin, I put on early in the month of 
March, about seven bushels of salt to the acre, which thoroughly 
destroys all kinds of vermin, being an excellent strong manure, and 
ploughed and harrowed the ground over and over until it became 
completely mellow. I then had every corn hole filled with long ma¬ 
nure ; and after dropping my corn, (which had previously been soak¬ 
ed in warm water,) I scattered a pint of lime over every hill, and 
then covered the whole with a little mellow earth. In about a week 
the corn began to come up plentifully; after which I nursed it with 
the plough and hoe, every other week for eight weeks, at which 
| time it was as high as my head, and not a spire of it was destroyed 
either by frost, grub or birds. My other things I manured equally 
well, and I have been amply paid for all my extra care and trouble, 
as I raised more than twice as much per acre as any of my neigh¬ 
bors, and did it in much less time. I mean I got all my harvesting 
done two or three weeks before many others. This is accomplish¬ 
ed in a great measure by redeeming time: rising between three 
and four o’clock in the morning; then if the day be sultry and hot, 
l lie by from twelve to three, and rest; I then feel refreshed, and 
able to work till quite dark. This I call “ ivorking it right;” where¬ 
as should I lay in bed until the sun be up and shame me, haunt the 
tavern at night, drink too much whiskey, but half manure, half 
plough, half plant, half nurse, half harvest, and do every thing by 
halves, I surely should not “ icork it right,” nor get half a crop. 
I shall now conclude by giving you, for further consideration, a 
few excellent observations, from a wiser head, perhaps, than my own, 
and hope that every brother farmer will do likewise. 
“ 1 often say to myself, what a pity it is our farmers do not work it 
right! When I see a man turn his cattle into the road to run at 
large, and waste their manure during a winter’s day, Isay that man 
does not icork it right. Ten loads of good manure, at least, is lost in 
a season, by this slovenly practice—and all for what? For nothino- 
indeed but to ru n his farm. 
“So when I see cattle, late in the fall and early in the spring, 
rambling in a meadow or mowing field, pounding the soil and break¬ 
ing the grass roots, I say to myself this man does not icork it right. 
“ So, when I see a barn-yard with a drain to it, I say this man 
does not work it right; for how easy it is to make a yard' hollow or 
lowest in the middle, to receive the moisture and all the wash of the 
sides, which will thus be kept dry for the cattle. The wash and 
moisture of the yard, mixed with any kind of earth, or putrid straw, 
is excellent manure; yet how much do our farmers lose by neglect¬ 
ing these things ! In facl, they do not work it right. 
“ When I see a farmer often going to a retailer’s store, with a 
bottle or jug, or lounging abcut a tavern or wrangling about politics, 
or quarrelling and defaming his neighbor’s good name, I am certain 
such a man does not work it right.” — Prov. Repuh. Herald. 
HINTS TO HOUSEWIVES. 
Vessels intended to contain liquid of a higher temperature than 
the surrounding medium, and to keep that liquid as long as possible 
at the highest temperature, should be constructed of materials which 
are the worst radiators of heat. Thus, tea urns and tea pots are 
