Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1883-05-03
Hops and Their Culture.

Any land suitable for growing Corn
is adapted TO Hops, bat 1t should not
be so low as to be overlooked or liable
to have water settle in pools on it.
The ground should be prepared for the
Hops by thorough blowing and har-
rowing as soon IN the spring as it will
admit. After blowing and narrowing,
it should be marked out into furro WIS
seven by eight feet apart. At these
crosses the hops should be planted.
Two sets in hill! are sufficient if they
are strong, but more are generally put
in, in order to insure good hill. The
sets should be cSyered an inch and q
half deep, and the ground pressed
firmly down over them. Each set
contains two eyes, and they are cut
from three to iys inches long. They
should be cut with straight and
smooth cut so rs not to split the ends,
or they will not grow. Between the
hills OF Hops each way, hill of Corn
or Potatoes may be planted the firss
year, and both should be well cultiv.t-
ed, and the ground kept msllow, and
the Hop hills entirely free from all
weeds and grass. In the fall, before
freezing, two shoveltuls Of foe m snure
should be placed on the top of each
hill of Hops. Too much manure
causes tendency to blight.
The second spring, the spaces be-
tween the rows of hops should be plow-
EMPLOYING away from the hills. The
space left, after the pillow has turned
over ~ much of the ground as it can,
must be raked ever, or forked over, and
the manure worked into the ground.
Thorough cultivation must be kept up
during the summer. Before the vines
begin to run, two poles should be set
sixteen inches deep into each hill, and
the vines rs they make growth must be
tied TO these poles; two vines are enough
for each pole. They should be gone
over every few days, and when the vines
get out of reach it is easiest to tie them
sitting on horseback; unless securely
tied they will not do well. Rushes and
yarn are used for tying. The poles
should be from eighteen 10 twenty two
feet long, and cost all the way from
four to sixteen cents each Cedar al g
the best.
When the seeds are brown and the
hop opens rich with yellow dust or pol
len, is the time to begin picking They
are picked mostly by children, for FIVE
cents bushel, without board. An aver
age picking is from two to three boxes
OF eight bushels. The hops are carried
from the field in sacks, and spread on
cloths over slsts in the dry-house,
where fire is kept up in = stove. In
twelve or sixteen hours they will be dry
enough to store in the hop-room. A
damp day is beat for pressing, which ia
done by hand or otherwise, in bales of
tive hundred pounds.
The third year after planting, the hills
must be raked over and the sprouts,
called sets, must be removed. One hill
will produce about four quarts of sets
on the average. These sets sell by the
bushel for planting new yards, bushel
being rated at twenty-five pounds. The
price varies according to the supply
from fifty cents to ten dollars per bush
ell. The coming season they will be
high, on account of the extreme dry
weather last year and the large demand.
1. costs, all told, not less than two hun.
bred dollars an acre to get tue first crop
of Hops. The yield runs all the way
from four to twelve hundred pounds
per acre, the average being about eight
hundred pounds.
There are other modes Of stringing
Hops besides on poles. One good mode
is to stretch wires from peles ON the
outside of the field, with resting poles
between, and train the vines on wires
reaching from a small post on the hill
to the main wire above.
There is no crop which iepays care
full culture more than Hops, and there
is nothing better adapted to grow in
out of-the-way places, along fences and
IN garden corners In such places a
hill of Hops may be planted, and by
digging in manure every year 1t will
grow for a lifetime, and produce a good
crop. Grass will run them out, and
this must be kept from the hill. Hops
may be trained IN fences. and do well.
They like the 4unlight, and on this ac-
count do not produce well, trained on
trees.-F. d. Curtis, in An. Garden.
ExLieutenant Governor knight, oil