HOP CULTIVATION.

Colonist, Volume XVI, Issue 1660, 15 August 1873, Page 5 (Supplement)

HOP CULTIVATION.

The following paper was read by Mr. W. Wilson at the meeting of the Horticultural Society of Christchurch, on Aug. 7.:—

The hop plant is a native of Europe, and is extensively cultivated on the continent and some of the counties of England for its flowers, which are used in communicating to beer its bitter properties. The bitter principle of the hop is called lupulin, and is attained by rubbing and sifting the heads. It was found to contain in 120 grains—lo of extractive matter, 11 of bitter principle, 12 of wax, 36 of resin, 46 of lignus, and 5 of tannin. Hops are tonic and moderately narcotic, and have been highly recommended in diseases of general and local debility. The complaints in which they have been found most useful are dispepsia and the nervous tremors, wakefulness, and delirium of drunkards. The young shoots of the hops, are eaten as asparagus; the roots have been used as a substitute for sarsaparilla, and as a sudorific, and they contain starch. The hop was well known to the Bomans, and is mentioned by Pliny under the name of lupus ealictarius. It gradually spread through Europe during the middle ages, but waa not cultivated in England till the year 1525, when it was introduced from Flanders, though not without violent opposition, petitions against it being presented to Parliament, in which it was stigmatised as " a wicked weed that would spoil the drink, and endanger the lives of the people." At the present day the principal hop-producing countries are England, Belgium, Bavaria, and the United States. In England about 50,000 acres are devoted to it, chiefly in Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, Worcestershiie, and Herefordshire, and more sparingly in Essex, Suffolk, Surrey, Yorkshire, &c.

Varieties.—Several varieties are known, the finest of which are the white bines, the goldings, and the grapes. Hops serve three important purposes in brewing —First, they impart an agrteable flavor to the beer; second, they check acetous fermentation, and thus render the beer capable of being kept; third, their tannin helps to clarify the beer by precipitating the albumen of the barley, ■ffbeir active qualities reside principally in the golden-yellow grains of lupuline with which they are covered, and on account of their narcotic odour, pillows stuffed with them are employed to induce sleep.

Cultivation. —The hop grows only in rich soils, and prefers a deep loam with a dry bottom, a sheltered situation, but at the same time not so confined as to prevent a free circulation of air. The soil requires to be well pulverised, and manured previous to planting. The mode of planting is generally in rows, six feet apart, and the same distance in the row.. The plants or cuttings are procured from the most healthy of the old shoots; each should have two joints or buds. Some plant the cuttings at once where they are to remain, and others rear them for a year in a nursery bed, and then transplant them. An interval crop of potatoes, cabbages, &c, is generally taken the first year.

Poling the Fops.—The poles are placed to the plants the second year, at .first only fire or six feet in length; in the third year are substituted poles of sixteen feet in length—from four to six poles to each circle of plants, as they now acquire their perfect dimensions and come into full bearing. The Spatiißh chestnut affords the most durable wood for poles, and accordingly it is much grown in Kent and other hop growing counties. The after culture of the hop consists in stirring the soil, and keeping it free from weeds; in guiding the Bhaots to the poles, and sometimes tying them; in eradicating any superfluous shoots which may arise from the root to prevent any more shoots from rising.

Picking.—Hops are known to be ready for gathering when the chaffy capsules acquire a brown color and a firm consistence; each chafly capsule contain! one leed. Before

these are picked, the poles witb the attached stalks, are_ pulled up and placed horizontally on frames of wood, two or three poles at a time. The hops are then picked off by women and children. After being carefully separated from the leaves and stalks, they are dropped into a large cloth; when the cloth is full, the hops are emptied into a large sack, which is carried home. Drying. —The hops are now laid on a kiln to be dried ; this is always done, as soon as possible after they are picked, as they are apt to sustain considerable damage both in color and flavor if allowed to remain long in the sacks in the green slate in which they are pulled. In very warm weather, and when they are pulled in a very moist state, they often heat in five or six hours. For this reason the kilns are kept constantly at work, both night and day, from the commencement of the hop harvest till the termination. The operation of drying hops is not .materially different from that of drying malt, and the kilns are of the same construction. The hops are spread on a hair cloth, from eight to twelve inches deep, according as the season is dry or wet, and the bops ripe or unmature. When the ends of the hop. stalks become quite shrivelled and dry they are taken off the kilu and laid on a boarded floor till they become quite cool, when they are put into bags. Bagging. —The bagging of hops is performed in the following manner. In the floor of the room where the hops are laid out to cool there is a round hole or trap equal to the mouth of a hop bag. After tying a handful of hops in each of the lower corners of a large bag, which serve afterwards for handles, the mouth of the bag is fixed securely to a strong hoop, which is made to rest on the edges of the hole, and the bag is itself being dropped through the trap the packer goes 'into it, when a person who attends for the purpose puts in the hops in small quantities in order to give the packer an opportunity of packing and trampling them as hard as possible. When the bag filled and the hops packed in so hard as thai it will hold no more, it is drawn up unloosed from the hoop and the end sewed up—other two handles having been previously tormed in the corners in the manner already mentioned. Crop.—The hop crop is liable to great variation. In a good season, an acre will produce 20cwts; from 10 to 12cwts is reckoned an average crop. The Btalk and leaves dye wool yellow, and the fibrous part of the stalk has been manufactured into a strong cloth. Colonial Cultivation.—So far, my remarks have had reference to the English cultivation of the hop. Now, however, I turn to its cultivation in New Zealand, and especially in Nelson, where I have during the short period of the past two seasons, had an opportunity of personally watching its several stages of growth and the high degree of success which attends the cultivation of the hop plant in that Province, possessing, as it does, no advantage whatever over this Province, either in the absence of occasional high winds, in the possession of a climate more favorable to luxuriant growth, or to the existence of a soil in any one respect equal to our own. My visits to Nelson, therefore,'my experience while there, drawn from close observation, justify me in assuming that the culture of the bop plant, in this Province is likely to become, at no very distant date, a very important and highly lucrative branch of rural industry, yielding a larger return from an acre of land than perhaps any other crop in cultivation. The hop plant can be quite as successfully grown in Canterbury as in the adjoining Province of Nelson, where hops are cultvated extensively, often yielding a clear profit of £200 per acre, one large brewing firm having nine acres in full bearing. The land on which they are growing being generally a friable yellow loam resting on a heavy clay subsoil, is in oo respect equal to very much of the land we possess. The plants are usuall} grown on .hills of three plants each, at distances of six feet from one hill to another. The land ia first double dug, after which the plants are set at the distance named, and are annually dug or forked between, with a liberal allowance of rich animal manure. The plants are gone over every spring with a hand hoe, and singled out to one strong crown; the plants removed being those which are generally used to form new plantations. These plants on good land, and under high cultivation, often give a small crop in the autumn of the firßt year, and invariably a splendid crop at the end of the second season.