The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-11-16
CTS went into raising hops, hoping anG

CTS went into raising hops, hoping and i fondly expecting to get rich in a few 1 years.
 | Many of them did. At that time for farmer to clear 5000 on his hop crop
 was not an altogether rare thing Prices were often as high as 75 cents a
 pound and in speculative times they frequently went as high as S1 pound
 Less than 20 years ago our part of the
 state was raising 50 per cent. of the
 entire hop crop of the United States,
 and was the recognized center of the
 industry.
 "At the night of hop cultivation in
 our belt of counties, four counties alone,
 Oneida, Otsego, Madison and Schoharie,
 sent to the export market S3000, 900
 worth of hops annually, so largely did
 this product of central New York enter
 into the manufacture of foreign ales
 and beers
 There can be no denying the fact that the speculative possibilities of the hop crop were the impelling cause for
 the giving over of a large part of the
 area in question to it's cultivation. That
 was what lured into hop-growing, not
 
 small farmer, the mechanic or trades
 man who was able to lease limited space of ground and even the laborer who held by squatter privilege some strip or patch of idle ground The cu- rious thing about this speculative spirit in hop-growing and harvesting was the fascination it had for old and staid farmers, men who held up their hands in pous abhorrence of gambling in stocks.
 tSuch men made great fortunes in their day out of this phase of the hop market but they are not the men who have the fortunes to-day The way the prices of hops would fiuctuate in the palmy days of the industry has no parallel in speculative transaction, ex- cept in petroleum in its early days on Oil creek, They have been known to go quickly from 10 cents to $1 a pound and back again with equal celerity Changes of 400 per cent. in the hop market have been known to occur within a few months. Seasons when the price of hops was as low as seven cents pound have been followed by others with steady market at 50 cents. Hop grow CTS of the speculativ kind have been known to hold their hops against an offer of 65 cents a pound, and to sell them within a few weeks for five cents, It is on record that crops that could have been sold at profit of thousands of dollars, have been used later on for bedding for cattle
 ''The speculative passion ruled some growers with such an irresistible fas- cination that nom alter how high the market price was they could not be made to believe that it would not go still higher, nearly always to their loss and too frequently to their ruin. This { was particularly noticeable in the mem- | orable season of 1882.
 That year central New York hops advanced to the unprecedented figure of $125 pound. The speculative grow CTS refused to sell at that price and even purchased largely and further more contracted for immense quanti- ties of the 1883 crop, an entirely un- known quantity, They argued that nothing could prevent hops from ad- to at least $2, but on what they based their calculations no one knew. But hops failed to make good their lattering prediction. On the contrary, he market began to decline, and at ast made one tumble after another un- til the top quotation was 25 cents a pound.
 'Long-headed growers made fortunes