The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1894-10-05
RUNNING A HOP FIELD.

The cost of starting a hop field is
less than it was few
years ago, roots now selling for SO
cents a bushel, cut, trimmed and
ready for setting out, as compared
with 81 bushel formerly: The
ground is laid out in even rows, us
ually feet apart. About $50 hop
poles are required for an acre. These
poles are of cedar Or chestnut, from
IL to % feet in length, and cost on
an average II IL cents apiece. The
first outlay ON an acre of hops is
from 1925 to $3.50. After the poles
are in the ground, the hops are
grubbed, the narrow is used, and by
the last of May the plants are tall
enough to be tied by boys and girls
to the poles. The last week i'll Au-
gust the harvest begins, and lasts
well ON into September. A field of
20 acres gives employment to 40 pick
eTs, five box-tenders, a man to dry the
hops, and 4 superintendent. The
pickers come mainly from Syracuse,
Rome, Utica, Trop, Cohoes, Albany,
Elmira and Binghamton, and some
times a party of st. Regis Indians are
brought down from Canada for the
harvest. The pickers are lodged and
boarded, and receive 20 or % cents a
box of seven bushels. A rapid worker
can fill four or five boxes a day. If
employed without board and lodging,
he is paid So or 40 cents a box. To
dry the hops in the kilnhouse requires
10 or - hours, the hops being turned
with long shovelS during the process
to insure evenness in drying. They
are then pressed into bales averaging
in weight 200 pounds. Truth compels
the admission that the male hOp-pick-
ers are for the most part a hard
drinking and lawless set, and the Cos
pei wagon which goes out from SYRIA
cuse to evangelize them has plenty
to do.
Fifty thousand people assist in pre-
pairing for market the hops grown in
New York state. The area of cultiva-
ton is chiefly in Oneida, Madison and
Otsego counties. Since 1880 the acre
age has increased more than so per
cent. In 1890 the yield of hops in
central New York was 2O,OOO,OOO
pounds, or more than half the total
production of the United States,
which was estimated at 80, ,270
pounds. This year about 32,OOO,OOO
pounds have been picked, dried and
packed i'll New York alone. No COM
modify is of more uncertain value than
hops. During the present season they
have been offered in large quantities
as low as 10 cents a pound, which is
less than the cost of preparing them
for market. Last year they sold for
81 cents a pound. They reached the
highest price ever quoted II years
ago, when they were $1.15 pound.
r11rl fnv rnf n ma Ist
with their holdings during the reg
ular season, and were obliged to throw
them ON the market the following
spring for cents pound. The home
consumption of hops, which are used
almost entirely in the making of beer,
is very large, often exhausting the
American product and compelling i'm
portations. In some years, the crops
in England and Germany being light,
the foreign brewers make heavy drafts
on the United States and the New
York grower has nothing to complain
of on the score of market prices
New York Post.
Statisticians now figure out that the
u. s. will this year supply 100000
cwts. and that the world at large will
produce about one third in excess of
consumption. 1t is therefore to be
assumed with some certainty that the
balances this year will incline strongly
in favor of the consumer after hav-
ing been on the side of the producers
all last year, and that the breweries
will probably utilize the low prices for
the purpose of laying in a stock in ex-
cess of requirements, which is made
practicable by the methods of COM
preston so extensively tested during
recent years.
Geo. L. Rose has been an active
buyer in the Puyallup district the
past week, and his purchases here
and in Oregon will total about 1,5OO
bales, at an average price of &c. ...
Robert Brown, of Connell prairie, har-
vested thirteen tons, about a ton to the
acre, and left the balance in the field.
He sold 6 tons at &C and Z tons at 7c
to Geo.. L. Rose. The 7c ones were
contracted for before picking. :. Hon.
Henry Beckett disposed of part of his
hops at &C. He had magnificent
crop, and harvested nineteen tons,
picking only the very choicest, and
leaving four tons to fertiliZe the yard.
Nv. B. Eldridge, a hopgrOwer at
Hamilton, n. Y, writes on Sept. 22d
that there is hardly a grower there but
who has left a good share of hops on
the poles, as they are mouldy. :. .R.
NJ. Rose yesterday received advices
saving that Geo. Wilbur and Frank
Miller at Oneonta, N. Y, had bought
LOO bales of good N. Y. hops at &c,
and that in Boston on the Goth Paul
Horst had sold and delivered there 25O
bales Pacifics at 8 S1-2. New York
dealers who are now here in Puyallup,
hop headquarters, say that they have
looked this field over and it is their
opinion that IL of the crop of the
Northwest is being left unpicked, and
that the balance is better than last
year. Picking is still going on in the
Puyallup district, about 400 pickers
being at work in the Meeker yards.
The capacity of the big kilns is not
equal to the hops picked. and so the
pickers have to be laid off part of the
time, and showery weather has also
been interfering with the work.-Puy-