AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
« FOR THE 
W arm, Grax-cLen, and. Tdonseliold. 
“AGRICULTURE IS THE MOST HEALTHFUL, MOST USEFUL, AM> MOST NOBLE EMPLOYMENT OF MAN.”— Washington. 
ORANGE judd & co., ) ESTABLISHED IN 1842. ( $i.jo pee anmot, in advance. 
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Entered according to Act of Congress in August, 1868, by Orange Judd & Co., in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New- York. 
VOLUME XXVII.—No. 9. NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER, 1868. NEW SERIES— No. 2G0. 
The little poetry which attached to our gen¬ 
eral harvests is well-nigh dispelled by the in¬ 
troduction of machinery. The harvest loses its 
busy appearance when a machine takes the 
place of men and women, and the iron click of 
the reaper is not as pleasing to the ear as the 
voices of the workers. Machines have not yet 
entered the hop-yard, and the harvest there is 
gathered by nimble fingers to the accompani¬ 
ment of equally nimble tongues. The hop 
harvest usually occurs early in September, the 
time varying with the season. When the seeds 
of the hop become brown and ripe, and the 
scales, on breaking open, show a plentiful dust¬ 
ing of golden yellow grains, then the picking 
begins, and is pushed as rapidly as possible. 
Women and children find light and pleasant 
work in picking the hops into boxes or bins, 
while the men find sufficient occupation in 
bringing the vines to the pickers, and taking the 
hops away to the drying kilns. Various forms 
of picking boxes are used; those of the kind 
shown in the engraving are of about the capacity 
of thirty bushels, and their contents will make 
about one hundred and thirty pounds when 
dried. Two experienced pickers will fill three 
or four such boxes in a day. An expert picker 
will take from five to ten hops at a time, close 
the hand lightly, and by a quick pull bring them 
off clean. It is the duty of the foreman to see 
that the hops are picked free from stems and 
leaves, and when the work is not done by the 
day, to keep an account of the quantity picked 
by the several hands. The hops, as fast 
as they accumulate, are conveyed to the kiln, 
one form of which is shown in the distance in 
the engraving, where they are dried by means 
of hot air. Hops, instead of being trained 
upon poles, are often grown upon horizontal 
cords or wires, a plan for which great superiori¬ 
ty is claimed. A yard, in which the vines were 
trained horizontally, could not affordthe artist 
an opportunity for such a picturesque sketch as 
he has given of the older and more common hop- 
yard, in which the vines are trained upon poles. 
