largely produced in the central counties of the State of New York than elsewhere, is deserving of attention from the thorough cultivation necessary to produce the crop, and its importance as an article of export. There were a few hops grown in every State in the Union except Florida in 1859, and in every territory except Dacotah and New Mexico, but the only States which reported over 100 bales=20,000 pounds, were Indiana, Maine, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Wisconsin. Of these New York was by far the largest producer, its yield being 9,671,931 pounds, while the aggregate production of the country was only 10,991,996 pounds. Vermont which came next had 638,677 pounds, and Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Maine were the only other States which produced 100,000 pounds or anywhere near the quantity. In New York, Otsego County has taken the lead in hop culture, reporting in 1859, 3,507,069 pounds, Madison following with 1,520,657 pounds, and Schoharie, with 1,441,648. Oneida, Herkimer, Montgomery, Chenango, Ontario, Franklin, and St. Lawrence, were the only other counties which produced any considerable quantity of hops in that year.

The New England Hop District, which produced in 1859 about 1,000,000 pounds, includes those counties of Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts, lying on or near the upper waters of the Connecticut River and its affluents. The hops from this source, distinguished in the New York market as "" Eastern Hops, while those from central New York and elsewhere rank as "Western," ripen earlier, are smaller, and of milder flavor than the Western, and do not command so high a price as the latter. The advance in the production of this crop has been remarkable. It was first enumerated in the census of 1840, when the quantity produced was stated at 6,000 bales, or about 1,200,000 pounds. In 1850 the product had increased to 17,000 bales, or about 3,400,000 pounds; in 1860, as we have seen, it was 55,000 bales, or about 11,000,000 pounds. In 1862 it reached 80,000 bales, or 16,000,000 pounds, a figure which, owing to the diseases to which it has been subject, it has never since attained. In 1863 it fell off to 65,000 bales, or 13,000,000 pounds, much of the crop being of inferior quality. In 1864 it was affected by the aphis or plant louse, and to some extent by the mould also, and not more than 45,000 bales came to market. The product of 1865 was good, except in the Hop District of New York, where it was again and still more seriously affected by the aphis.

The crop is quite as variable and uncertain in Great Britain as in the United States; and when the crop fails there either partially or wholly, the brewers import largely from other countries whatever the price, while in favorable years their importation is very small. In 1859 only 248,640 pounds were imported into Great

Britain, while in 1861 the importation was 16,707,712 pounds, or almost seventy times as much, and in 1863 about the same amount. There is a home demand for from 8,000,000 to 10,000,000 pounds in the United States, yet in 1861, 8,835,837 pounds were exported, at about twenty cents per pound, while the preceding year exports were only 273,257 pounds. The prices have fluctuated from four to ten cents a pound in 1855-1858, to thirty-five to sixty cents in 1865. The hop can be grown in ordinary times and at the usual price of labor for from twelve to fifteen cents per pound.

The hop requires a deep, well-pulverized, and highly fertile soil for its successful cultivation. If the subsoil is clay it should be thoroughly underdrained. Good wheat lands are generally good hop lands, though the hop requires more silica, lime, and sulphuric acid and less magnesia and phosphoric acid than wheat. It is an exhausting crop, and in most sections requires frequent and liberal administration of manures, especially plaster of Paris, guano, and the like. The plants are usually set about seven feet apart each way, giving not far from 900 plants to the acre. Two poles, if they are sixteen or eighteen feet in height, are set for each hill, and three if they are not more than twelve or fourteen feet. These are usually spread apart somewhat at the top. Two vines or plants are usually left to grow for each pole, though if there is danger from the wire worm it is better to reserve more till this danger is past. They are usually propagated from cuttings, as the hops grown from the seed are of uncertain quality. The plants should be selected about one male to fifty female plants. The crop is usually best in the third or fourth year after planting, though it yields moderately before that time. It requires careful and thorough tillage, the weeds being removed and the soil kept well pulverized. The hop yard must be so located as to be protected from high and violent winds, yet should be open to the sun and a free circulation of air. The cost of a hop yard which will bear freely for ten years, is from $400 to $500 per acre, including plants, poles, manure, etc. The processes of picking, drying, and packing the hops are very accurately described by Mr. Rouse, of Oneida County, N. Y., in the Patent Office Report for 1853:

"The hops having reached maturity, or nearly so, the operation of picking commences. This, to have the fruit in full perfection, should not be done until it is ripe; at which time the seed will be found to have changed from a bright straw color to a pale brown, and will emit a fragrant smell. With us hops are usually ripe about the 5th of September; but as it is better they should be harvested rather green than be permitted to stand till over-ripe, liable to be injured by the early frosts, as they cannot all be gathered at once, it is necessary in large fields to commence somewhat earlier-usually about the first of September-in order that the work may be completed in season. The pick

ing is usually done by females. For this purpose girls are frequently engaged several months, and even a whole year, in advance.

"The hops are commonly picked in large boxes, containing from twenty-four to forty bushels. These boxes are divided lengthwise by a thin partition, and then subdivided into quarters. They are raised a little from the ground, and have handles at the ends to facilitate their removal from place to place, as may be desirable. One man and four girls are allowed to each box. Each girl deposits the hops she picks in her own division of the box. An industrious hand can pick twenty bushels in a day without difficulty. It is the business of the man to supply the boxes with poles, which he raises from the ground as needed, cutting the vines about a foot high; to see that the picking is properly done, to remove the empty poles, clear them of the vines, and stack them in a systematic manner. In picking, the hops should be kept free from stems and leaves, and all blasted or immature ones should be rejected. The boxes should be emptied at at least once a day; at all events, no hops should be left in them over night. It is of great consequence that they should be dried as soon as possible after they are picked, as they are quite liable, if left together in any quantity, to heat and spoil in a few hours. They may be most conveniently conveyed from the field to the dry-house in large sacks.

"Drying. The hop-house, or kiln, should be of a size proportionate to the quantity of hops to be cured, so that they may not accumulate on hand. To avoid this, it will generally be necessary to keep the kiln heated both day and night. It is commonly built of an oblong form, and two stories, the lower part being occupied by the kiln and the press-room, and the upper part by the drying-floor over the kiln, and by a room of about equal size for storing the dried hops, which will of course be over the pressroom. Kilns are sometimes built of bricks or stone, of a circular form, with a round opening in the apex of the roof, surmounted by a movable cowl, or swinging ventilator, to enable the vapor of the drying hops to escape easily. If e building is of wood, the sides of the kiln should be lined with brickwork, or thoroughly lathed and plastered. It is found to be most Convenient and economical to heat it with stores, from two to four of which will be neCessary, according to the size of the kiln. The drying-floor should be ten feet from the ground, that there may be no danger of scorching the hops in drying. This floor is formed of slats about one and a half inch in width, and the Bame distance from each other. These are covered with a strong coarse cloth, of open texture, 80 as to admit a free transmission of the heated sir from the kiln below. The drying-room should be of comfortable height for a person to work in it, and the sides should be lathed and plastered, that there may be no irregularity of the heat in different portions of the room dur

ing high winds. A good ventilator should be provided in the roof, as described above. Openings should be left in the walls near the bottom of the kiln to admit fresh air from without, the draught to be regulated by means of flues, or sliding doors. The cloth for the drying-floor should be well stretched over the slats and firmly nailed. On this floor the hops are spread to the depth of six or eight inches. The proper thickness will depend somewhat on the condition of the hops; if they are very full of moisture, they should be laid on quite thin; but if gathered when fully ripe, and in fine weather, a depth of ten inches will be allowed.

"The hops being spread as evenly as possible, the fires are immediately kindled in the kiln, and the temperature regulated to one uniform degree of heat. This, however, may be quite high at first, as there will be at that time but little danger of scorching the hops if the floor is sufficiently high. If the hops are rusty, or discolored from any other cause, it is usual to burn a little sulphur under them, which will bring them to a uniform appearance. This is done as soon as the hops are well warmed through, and feel somewhat moist. Great prejudice formerly existed against the use of sulphur in drying hops; but no objection is now made to it by the brewers, and it is generally thought that the use of it improves the appearance of all hops, and that it also facilitates the drying.

"During the drying process the fires should be kept up, and there should be a free supply of fresh air below, sufficient to keep up a regular succession of heated air from the kiln, passing through the hops and out at the ventilator, carrying with it the vapor expelled from the drying hops. This will be found far preferable to a still, dead heat. As soon as the upper part of the hops appears to have felt the fire, the lower part may be considered as nearly dry, and will rattle a little. The heap may then be turned. Before this is done the heat should be suffered to abate a little, and increased again after the turning is finished. I am aware that many do not turn their hops while drying, nor suffer them to be disturbed at all until they are ready to be removed from the floor. Still, the better opinion, I think, is in favor of turning as tending to facilitate the drying and render it more perfect by the more effectually exposing every portion of the mass to the action of the heated current of air, than would be case were they allowed to remain as first deposited on the floor, containing many inequalities in density even when the utmost care is exercised in their distribution. If turned at the right time, and in a careful manner, there need be no injury done to the hops. When sufficiently dried they should be allowed to cool off a little, if time can be afforded, otherwise there will be great danger that they will break in moving, or a portion of them shell off and waste. Ten or twelve hours are required to dry a kiln of hops. Two kilns may be dried in twenty-four hours

by keeping the heat up through the night. A twenty-foot kiln will thus dry 400 bushels in a day, as they come from the vines, making about 750 pounds of hops when dry.

"Baling. The hops being dried, the next process is to bale them. This should not be done immedately after they are taken from the kiln, but they should be allowed to lie a few days in the store-room till they become a little softened, otherwise their extreme brittleness will cause them to be much broken in baling and the sample be thereby greatly injured. The bales should be of symmetrical and convenient form, and should contain about 200 pounds. They are formed in a box or bin prepared for the purpose, in the press-room, of such shape as will give the desired size and form. Across the bottom and sides of this box the baling cloth is first laid, and the hops are then let down into it from above, and trodden down as they are dropped in until it is filled. Another cloth is then carried over the top, a follower applied, and the screws of the press turned down upon it until the whole is brought into a compact mass. The box is then taken apart, the cloth neatly secured round the bale, the screws are run up, the bale taken out and the ends cased, when it may be considered finished, and the same process is repeated in forming another."

We have referred to the diseases and injuries to which the hop is liable. These are numerous, more so in England, perhaps, than in the United States, but the most destructive here are the aphis or hop-louse and the mould.

Dr. Harris, in his "Insects Injurious to Vegetation," thus describes the aphis, a genus which commit serious ravages on many of our deciduous plants and trees, but on none, perhaps, are more destructive than on the hop:

"The winged plant-lice provide for a succession of their race by stocking the plants with eggs in the autumn. These are hatched in the spring, and the young lice immediately begin to pump up the sap from the tender leaves and shoots, increase rapidly in size, and in a short time come to maturity. In this state it is found that the brood, without a single exception, consists wholly of females which are wingless, but are in a condition immediately to continue their kind. Their young, however, are not hatched from eggs, but are produced alive, and each female may be the mother of fifteen or twenty young lice in the course of a single day. The plant-lice of this second generation are also wingless females, which grow up and have their young in due time; and thus brood after brood is produced, even to the seventh generation or more, without the appearance or intermixture, throughout the whole season, of a single male. This extrordinary propagation ends in the autumn with the birth of a brood of males, which in due time acquire wings, and pair; eggs are then laid by the females, and with the death of these winged individuals, which soon follows, the race becomes extinct for the season."

The eggs of these insects are not destroyed by

cold or wet, and only multiply more rapidly in drought. Wet weather, long continued, does somewhat hinder their development, but exposes the plant to injury from mould. Morton, in his "Cyclopædia of Agriculture," thus describes the effect of their attacks upon the hop vine:

"When the first attack of these upon the hops is severe, and early in the season, the growth of the plant is commonly stopped in the course of three or four weeks. If the attack be late-that is, about midsummer, or afterwards-the bine has then attained so much strength that it struggles on against the blight to its disadvantage, and the result is a total failure of the crop at last; for the leaves fall off, and the fruit-branches being already formed, there is no chance of recovery. At this time and in this condition the stench from the hop plantation is most offensive. In an early blight, however, we may have many instances recorded of extraordinary recoveries; for these insects are remarkably susceptible of atmospherical and electrical changes, and on a sudden alteration of the weather we have known them perish by myriads in a night. The condition of a plant is never hopeless, however severe the attack may be, provided there is time for it to put forth its lateral or fructifying branches.

"Their multiplication is so rapid that the leaves become so thickly covered as scarcely to allow a pin to be thrust between them. They quickly abstract the juices of the bine, so that the leaves assume a sickly brown hue, and curl up, and the bine itself ceases to grow, and falls from the pole, the lice continuing till they perish for want of food; and thus, without the intervention of a favorable change, the crop is destroyed, and the grower may often consider himself fortunate if the plant recover a due amount of vitality to produce a crop in the following year.

"When atmospherical change occurs, the lice die off by thousands in a day. As they die they turn a brown color. The first indication of a favorable change is the clustering of the lice to the extremities of the bines and branches. This fact is well worthy of notice, since to all but close and accurate observers of the hop plant, the outward appearance is the reverse of a favorable change; for the small leaves and heads of the bines are densely covered with lice. But while the lice are thus gathering in countless myriads at the extremities, apparently threatening the utter destruction of the plant, the large leaves at the bottom of the bine and the leaves of the branches next the stem are becoming clean. At this clustering period the lice evidently cease to suck the juices of the plant; for the attentive observer will perceive the bine resuming its erect position, and recommencing its upward growth, though still covered with lice. At this crisis they usually disappear altogether in the course of a week or ten days, and then the plants should be liberally rewarded, if not lavishly stimulated, with manure,

there being no danger of over-manuring under such circumstances.

"The best manure to be employed in these cases is guano, at the rate of 450 to 900 pounds per acre. The ground should be continually stirred, but this stimulus should not be given until it is certain the lice are disappearing."

Injurious insects are much lessened in number by natural enemies. That which is most destructive of these lice is the lady-bug, or, as called in England, the lady-bird. Of these the work just quoted from says:

"They, in the first instance, destroy multitudes of lice, a single one killing eight or ten in as many minutes; and where the lice are not too numerous, the lady-birds will clean the hop plantations. But, generally, the lice have time to deposit some of their young on the under side of the leaves before their enemies attack them, especially if the weather be clouded, when the lady-birds are sluggish and inactive. The lice are seldom devoured at this time, but the lady-birds lay their eggs also on the under side of the leaves, usually in clusters of about twenty each. These eggs adhere to the leaves, are yellow in color, and of a long, oval shape; they are soon hatched, and the progeny which creeps forth is the black nigger' or 'serpent,' as they are called in the districts. They are ferocious-looking creatures, greatly resembling in shape, though not in size, the lizards of the olden time. As soon as they are hatched they commence the work of destruction upon the lice-eggs, which are their peculiar food, as the lice are of their parents, the lady-birds; and if the lice are not extremely numerous, they often succeed in clearing the plant of the vermin, otherwise they devour them until they are literally gorged with food, and then, attaching themselves to the leaves of the hop, after remaining dormant in the larva state, they cast off their outer cuticle, and are transformed into the perfect lady-birds, when they again pursue their good work of destroying the enemies of the hop-consuming about thirty lice daily."

We have described the depredations of the lice, and the good work of the lady-bugs, at some length, that the hop-grower might see the necessity of two things: 1, having the ground in the highest condition as to richness and tillage, that the plant may be enabled to overcome the attack of the lice; and 2, the very great importance of preserving the lady-bug, one of the most useful of the beneficial insects. The lice could be destroyed by syringing the vines with whale-oil-soapsuds, but this remedy is too tedious for hop cultivation.

2. The mould.-There are various diseases to which common parlance has given this name, but the one now described is the most fatal to the hop. These diseases, like the lice, are parastic, that is, both exist upon the juices of the hop-plant, which, being deprived of them, are blighted. Hence the term blight does not desznate the cause, but the result of the attack of the disease or insect. Morton's "Cyclopæ

dia of Agriculture" thus speaks of the disease now under consideration:

"The mould is a disease rather than a blight. We believe it to be a parasitical vegetable fungus, usually generated in wet seasons and in damp situations. It is of all diseases the most dreaded by the hop-grower, inasmuch as there is no known remedy for it, and as it steadily progresses in its attack, with more or less rapidity, according to the character of the season, till the crop is gathered. It often originates from the negligence and inattention of the cultivator, and thus prevention is better than cure. It is intimately allied to, if it be not precisely the same, as the white mildew which we see in hawthorn hedges and on rose-bushes, especially if the latter grow in shady situations. When the mould appears to any considerable extent upon the hops so early as the end of June or beginning of July, however luxuriant the vine may then appear, there is no hope of a crop worth picking. Dampness and a want of a free circulation of air and light seem to be the predisposing cause of mould, and thus we often see it emanate from wild hops, which are carelessly allowed to grow in neighboring hedges. As soon as this violent disease appears, it spreads in every direction with astonishing rapidity, diminishing in intensity as the distance increases from the centre of mischief. It is first noticeable upon the upper side of the leaf as a white speck, not larger than a small pin's head, the spot increasing in size till it attains the diameter of about one-eighth of an inch; below this white spot, on the under side of the leaf, there is a corresponding indentation, which renders this incipient indication of mould unmistakable. From the spots on the surface of the leaf the seeds of this parasitical fungus, as we imagine it to be, are blown in all directions, and the minutest particle of this white dust when it settles on another leaf in a few days becomes a minute speck of mould. Each new spot then propagates the disease, and thus we perceive this vegetable pestilence advances with fearful rapidity of geometrical progression, and if the season be damp, acre after acre falls a victim to the attack, which often originates from sheer inattention."

Mould spreads fastest in warm, damp weather. It commences near the ground, and therefore great attention ought to be paid to the frequent pulling off of the suckers, as they sprout through the hill in the summer months. Every spotted leaf should be destroyed. And here we now see the necessity of making such selection of the site of the hop plantation as will secure a free access of air and sunlight, for dryness is a check to this disease.*

ALABAMA. At the commencement of the year 1865, the determination to prosecute the war with all the resources at command, had not been

The meteorological returns for 1864 were not received in season to be used in this article, but will be given, with those for 1865, in the nest volume.