THE HOP HARVEST

Colonist, Volume XXXIV, Issue 6067, 23 March 1891, Page 5

THE HOP HARVEST

[FROM OCR WAIMEA OOBRESPONDEKT' ]

The hop harvest ia now in fall swing in the country districts, and every morning eooreß of pickers may be seen wending tb>ir w»y to ;he vaiions gardens. On visiting tue fields one notices quite an array of vehicle- of ail descriptions, which give a pionic-like aspect to the sc ne. while inside the garden th? mfiry picker 3 are hard at work filling the bins with the golden cones. Hop picking woald ssim to be an intensely fashionable employment, for nearly every clatss of the comratTiiiy is represented. But crops are gcod an! pocket money scarce, and 1 suspeoi thai the " almighty dol'ar " is accountable for the presence of the majority. Very fair wages are being earned, a single family Laving picked 120 bushels the oi,her day, , w bile a young laiy tstiblished a record of 31 busiu-.l?, but 20 b'ishtis a day va&y be considered as a f iir average f.r a good picker. The pri-je gener diy paid for picking is \hcea pence > er ten gallon measure. Th- crops aie s.ood ail round and one of our largest growe.s. Messrs Ed.n Bros., have vickeJ * 1000 buahela a. day h>the ast week. "'What's the pric* going o be ?" is iha question SiSbed by th ; growers, au.l up to present ti-se still uuans^ere i by those who ought to know. While ero, s in our district are gcod, those at Moiuaka ai d Takaka are about ad utual. But what U this produce of our four or five hundred acres whan thrown into the world's yield. There is as present a great bo^m %a the northern h.-misphe;e, owing to the shortage in lasi season's crop. Paper* from America by the last mil give the lattst quotations at 36 cents ab, ag -od rise on tha usual price, Bor 10 cents. A correspondent writing to a isapii-r paper on the 23uR, in giving pamouiars about the Riverslew gardens, which are expected to yield 25 cwt to the acie, rays the owner baa already had enquirits from England for this year's crop. He was also shown a letter from Messrs W. H. and H- Le May, dated ota January, 1891, who state that England would require every bala of hops could get, and that 1890 bops were fetching £15 per owt. 'Le Fermitr ' a reliable French journal gives the following statistics of the world's orO p ; —England produced 220,983 owf, and will consume 589,286 cwt ; the United States produced about .294,643 owt, aDd will consume 319,197 ewt. 'L'he figares are also, given lor ott:er countries. The total production is 1.041,810 cwt, and the consumption 1,639,116 cat; the defioit in the world's crop of 1890 being estimated at 644,306 owt. It will thus be teen that growers have a right to expect -a dubstantial rise in piices, bat it is to be hoped that the > boom of 1883 will not be repeated, or most surely there will be such an increase in acreage as to bring > the product down to atarTation pxioea.