Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1925-07-16

1t is now so years since Wis
consin was swept by the hop
craze. In many of the central
counties of the state hop sheds
may still be seen, but later gener-
ations know little about this agri-
cultural boom, which lasted in Wis
consin and then died when the hop
louise attacked the plants.
Just as the cotton crop is now
endangered by the boil weavil, so
the hop crop of Wisconsin was at
tackled so years ago, and with no
one to give advice, farmers soon
discontinued the growing of the
crop. Hops had been grown in
the state since 1860.
Toward the close of the war a
new factor entered" declares Fred
erick Merk. 'In New York, and
other eastern hop centers the louise,
a traditional enemy of the vine,
swept over the fields, and for sue
cession of years the eastern crops
were almost ruined. Prices as a
result went soaring. In the fall
of 1861 the best Wisconsin grades
ranged in the New York market az
from Is to 25 cents per pound: by
1865 they were SO to IS cents per
pound, and in 1857, SIS to 20 cents
per pound.
"The profits held out to hop
growers by such prices were ex-
traordinary. In 1866 numbers of
growers in Sank county were said
to have realized from their crop
$500 to $1,000 an acre. In 1867
the Wisconsin State Journal con-
tanned an account of a farmer who
was reported to have raised on a
single acre 800 pounds of hops
worth 581a cents per pound. Ceases
are numerous" declared the secre-
tary of the state agricultural So
ciety in 1868, Gin which the first
crop has paid for the land and all
the improvements; leaving sIbse-
quent crops a clear profit, minus
the cost of cultivation and harvest
ing The Milwaukee Sentinel in
1867 estimated that of S2,000,Q00
paid to the hop growers of Sank
county during the year, $1,500,000
was clear profit.
Hop Growing Became Rage
Whether or not such accounts
were true, and they were no doubt
highly exaggerated, their effect was
the same upon the popular mind.
Hop growing developed into a YER
liable craze. Gathering renewed
force with every new acre planted
in the county of Sank, where it may
be said to have originated, and
where the crop of 1866 was over
half a million of pounds, it spread
from neighborhood to neighbor-
hood, and from county to county un-
| til by 1867 it had hoped the whole
state over; so completely revolu-
tionizing the agriculture of some
sections that one in passing thru
them found some difficulty i con-
vincing himself he was was not
really in old Kent, of England"
"In 1867 the product of the state
was valued at $4,2OO,OO0; by the
next year it had leaped almost
twice that amount, Sank county
alone produced, in 1867, upon 2,548
acres Of land approximately 4,000,-
900 pounds, or one-fifth of all the
hops raised in the entire country,
and the next year, upon a more
than doubled acreage, her product
was even larger. In 1867 kilbourn
in Sank county, the chief shipping
center of the Wisconsin hop dis
trict, ranked, according to the Wis
consin Mirror, as the greatest pri-
mary hop depot in the United
States perhaps in the world.
Harvest time in the hop dis
trict was a season of unusual and
picturesque animation. Far and
near from the surrounding country
girls and women of every class and
condition, in response to the call
for pickers, streamed into the hop
gardens. THE railroad companies
are utterly unable to provide cars
for the accommodation of the
throngs who daily find their way t.
the depots to take the cars for the
hop fields. Every passenger car