The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1883-10-03
LIFE IN THE HOP DISTRICT.
THE FASCINATION OF HOP CULTURE
DESCRIBED.
How Fortunes Are Made and Lost-An ARrI-
cultural Pursuit With the Chances of the
Gaming Table.

cultural Pursuit with the Chances of the
Gaming Table.
Whoever makes summer pilgrim
age westward from Albany by the AL
Dany and Susquehanna railroad, after
the first thirty miles are passed, begins
to see a strange and unaccustomel
vegetation. Occasionally luxuriant
growth of vines is met, which covers
the earth entirely from the fervent
midday sun, and rises from twelve to
twenty feet in the air. He is in the
outskirts of the hop district. 1t is
only after he has gained the summit,
about fifty miles west of the capital
city, and rolls swiftly down the long
slope of the Susquehanna valley, that
he realizes that the heart of hop-grow-
ing America is reached. He is in
Otsego-a county which eXcels all
others in acreage and amount and
value of hops.
Here the hop fields become larger
and more numerous. Hop-growers are
no longer the exception, but the rule.
You may drive the whole day and
hardly pass farm which has not from
two to fifty acres of the vine. This
acreage is constantly increasing. The
small grower Of five years ago shows
his broad fields to-day, and even the
timid, old-fashioned farmer of that
time has caught the infection, and
boasts a modest acreage Of his own.
The merchant, the mechanic, and even
the day laborer not infre1uently hires
plot of ground from some nelghbor-
ing farmer, and "tries his fortune with
the rest. Instances are not Gncom-
mon of those who rent a few acres and
rely upon the crop produced, spending
the whole year in an about the hop
yard. 1t is a mania; and, as in the oil
regions nothing is heard save oil yields
and oil prospects, so here you hear
from year end to year end nothing save
a dreary iteration of hop prospects,
hop sales, hop yields and hop blight.
1t is a region of unquestione fertility,
and one of the best grazing and dairy
ing sections of the State. All the &C.
reals furnish certain and abundant
harYesUs. The root crops are prolific
and the orchards redundant of fruit
age. All, however, are subordinate to
the uncertain hop industry. and the
rich man looks for his luXuries and the
poor man for his necessities to the value
of this crop alone.
Hop growing is always uncertain.
Therein lies much OF its fascination.
4 1t is the spirit OF Wall street carried
a'field. The dairyman or grain grower
looks for but slight fluctuation in the
value of his produce from year to
year. a gain or loss of fifty per cent.
would be remarkable. Within a much
smaller limit he is safe. But the hop
cultivator knows that the price of this
year bears no discoverable relation to
that of the next. 1t may be 200 CT
400 per cent. higher or lower without
exciting great surprise. As great
changes as that have occurred within
the last few months.
When we reflect that hops can under
favorable circumstances be fitted for
market for ten cents per pound, and
that fifteen cents yields a margin of
profit, we get at the full signific ance
of these figures. Eight to ten cents
per pound has not infre1uently been
the price for year or more, followed,
it may be the next season, by from
forty to fifty cents. Yet the decline
is as sudden and unexpected. l have
in mind grower who was some years
ago offered siXty-two and half cents
pound for his crop of 5000 pounds.
Refusing to sell at that time
he afterward accepted five cents
per pound, which was much
more than many others re-
ceived. Another sod his whole crop
for $40. One man fel them to his
sheep, while another used them for
horse-bedding. But in the overturn
of things produced by last
years supposed immense short.
age some Of those hops which had by
some chance been kept, were sold
for more than they were worth when
new. 1t would be interesting to know
if they have at last got into use, or are
still kept in store, perhaps to pass into
a greater worthlessness than before.
The ia tors which produce this vast
flu tuation Of prices are many. Per
haps there is no other plant subject to
50 many Yicissitudes of climate as the
hop. The roots may winter-kill over
vast areas. A slow, cold summer may
retard the growth. A hot, wet August
may bring the mold in the wake Of the
dreaded insect enemy, the fly. The
louise, an immature fly, may cover the
leaves by thousands, causing that pc
cular black and sh ming appearance
known as honeydew. Add to these
the depredations of the hop grub,
which, working under ground, de-
stroys the roots, and the myriad forms
of caterpillars and of insect life which
make their home in the hop planta.
tions, and you get some idea of the
enem es with which the planter must
contend. During the present year
there has been added to these a blight,
/ tbe natura of which is not DreciSply de-