lm 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
113 
Culture of Hops—No. 3. 
Drying, —All hops should be dried as soon af¬ 
ter they -are picked as possible. At. least once a 
day all should be gathered, and immediately .put 
to drying. If they are kept over night, unless 
tlie weather is very cool, the}' will be likely to 
heat, or at least theii: color may be slightly 
changed, which will injuriously affect their ap¬ 
pearance, and not by any means can they be re¬ 
stored. 
Kilns for drying are variously constructed 
The one I shall describe is the.same I have used % 
and similar in most respects to nine-tenths in use 
in this vicinity. Being found.to answer well all 
purposes, and, upon the whole, about as conve¬ 
nient as any other form. The size should of course 
be somewhat proportioned to the size of the yard, 
and the number ofTiands intended to be eipployed 
in picking. It niay be in the form of a parallelo¬ 
gram, and about as much space will be required- 
in the upper story for storing, as for drying. The 
lower story* is used for a kiln and a press-room. 
The .posts ought to be high, as in no case should 
the carpet on which the hops are spread be less 
. than tea feet from the ground floor below. 
I know many are used that are not more than 
six. or seven feet high • but this is entirely wrong, 
and novj; fast giving place to higher ones. If the 
kiln is high, tlje heat' has a much better chance to 
expand and become more uniform. There is much 
less danger of scorching the hops, and finally I 
believe it could be easily demonstrated that less 
heat would lie-required. Stone or brick buildings 
would be altogether preferable to wooden ones, 
being closer, and consequently wasting less heat, 
and being more fire-proof, there would be less 
danger from fire. 
Where wood buildings are used, the inside of 
the kiln is lathed and plastered all around, leaving 
only ai small door to enter. The sills should lie 
laid one to two feet above ground, and. weii under¬ 
pinned with stone laid in mortar, leaving two holes 
at least, on each side and end, say 6 by 15 inches 
to supply air from without, to send the heated air 
upward and through the hops. And this supply 
of air ean be regulated at pleasure by opening or 
closing the holes. 
The hops are spread on a carpet above, sup¬ 
ported by small sticks one and a fourth by one 
and a half inches in size; and nailed to the joists so 
as to leave about as much space as they occupy. 
The carpet may be of linen or. cotton, (hair car¬ 
pets, f believe, are used in England, but I have 
not known them used in this country,) hard twist, 
ed, and wove thin, or half slated, as the weavers 
have it. The carpet should be well stretched and 
firmly nailed to the rack above described. The 
depth to-which the hops may be spread will vary 
with circumstances, from six to ten inches, and I 
would much prefer the former to the latter, al- 
thougn i have seen them well dned when even 
more then ten inches deep. 
The kiln above, should be sufficiently high to 
clear a man’s head when standing erect in any part 
of it , and if the sides are plastered to the plates 
all the better, as in times of high wind it will pre- 
^ vent it from driving the warm air from one side 
k to the other, and thereby cause - them to dry un¬ 
it even. 
A plenty of windows should be inserted in the 
sides above, and large cupolas on the top for ven¬ 
tilation, &.c. The hops being spread, and the 
windows above all closed, we proceed to build 
fires below, and as soon as possible to get up 
steam, especially if the hops are at all discolored 
by raster otherwise, as it is necessary to get them 
a little moist in order to tiring them to a more uni¬ 
form appearance by burning a little sulphur under 
them, if the hops, are bright and of good color, 
the sulphur can be dispensed with. thougfi'I think 
it rather improves ail hops in looks, and causes 
them-to open and dry more easily, and for this opin¬ 
io fl!--have the authority of a great many good hop 
dryers. A high degree of heat is as soon obtained 
as possible, and continued steadily until the steam 
from the hops has nearly all passed off. As there 
is no danger of scorching at this stage of the dry¬ 
ing, (especially if the* kiln is high,) the heat must 
not be allowed to abate, or the steam then passing 
off would fall back on the hops and stain and dis¬ 
color them, causing them to become seconder 
third in quality. As soon as the hops are well 
warmed through and feel moist, the sulphur is 
burned. Previous to this the windows above must 
be. kept closed in order to keep the heat and steam 
in, to get the moisture on the hops. After the 
sulphur gets well to burning and the fumes fill the 
kiln above, the windows are opened, and a strong 
draft of air.let in under the sills to force the hot 
air through the hops, and drive both sulphur and 
steam out of the building.' A lively air or heat, 
passing rapidly off, and being, constantly supplied 
with new or fresh heat, and not a dead, inactive 
one, is what is needed I will here remark that 
if high winds prevail, the windows on the side to 
tiie wind ought not to be open, as drafts of cold 
air ’on the hops would not he of much service. 
But as every one in drying hops will need to exer¬ 
cise a good deal of judgment in this as in all other 
respects, I will dismiss this part of the subject by 
simply saying there should always be a liberal 
supply of air below, and free and sufficient venti- 
. lation above.. 
As before remarked, a steady heat must‘he 
maintained until the moisture is all off, • and the 
hops will rattle a little at the bottom, the top also* 
beginning to feel a little dry, when they ought to 
be turned, and the heat may be slackened a little. 
I know many do not turn their hops, or suffer 
them to be at all disturbed during the process of 
drying. But from repeated trials in both ways. 
I am decidedly of opinion that bt>th time and fuel 
are saved by turning; and there is no waste or in¬ 
jury to the hop if they are turned at the right 
time. As this is a point on which there is a con¬ 
siderable diversity of opinion, I will give only one 
(though there are many) strong reasons for turn- 
ing hops while drying. It is hardly possible, in 
spreading a flooring of hops, to get them perfectly 
even and uniform in thickness. They ‘may be 
level, but there will be places where they will lay 
more light and loose than others. This is almost 
unavoidable, as every one knows who has ever 
dried a kiln of hops; and of course the heated air 
will pass more readily through those places than 
where they lay more compact, and such places 
will beeome dry while the more solid parts will 
•feel moist and require much more time to dry. 
Now, when tills is the case, as it most invariably 
will be. the current of heat rushes to those places 
where it can most easily ascend; the hops all the 
