in Botany. See Humulus, Botany Index.

Hops were first brought into England from the Netherlands in the year 1524. They are first mentioned in the English statute book in the year 1552, viz. in the 5 and 6 of Edw. VI. cap. 5. And by an act of parliament of the first year of King James I. anno 1603, cap. 18. it appears, that hops were then produced in abundance in England.

The hop being a plant of great importance in the article of brewing, we shall consider what relates to the culture and management of it, under the following heads:

Of Soil. As for the choice of their hop grounds, they esteem the richest and strongest grounds the most proper; and if it be rocky within two or three feet of the surface the hops will prosper well; but they will by no means thrive on a stiff clay or spongy wet land.

The Kentish planters account new land best for hops; they plant their hop gardens with apple-trees at a large distance, and with cherry-trees between; and when the land hath done its best for hops, which they reckon it will in about 10 years, the trees may begin to bear. The cherry-trees last about 30 years; and by that time the apple-trees are large, they cut down the cherry-trees.

The Essex planters account a moory land the most proper for hops.

As to the situation of a hop-ground, one that inclines clines to the south or west is the most eligible; but if it be exposed to the north-east or south-west winds, there should be a shelter of some trees at a distance, because the north-east winds are apt to nip the tender shoots in the spring; and the south-west winds frequently break and blow down the poles at the latter end of the summer, and very much endanger the hops.

In the winter-time provide your soil and manure for the hop-ground against the following spring.

If the dung be rotten, mix it with two or three parts of common earth, and let it incorporate together till you have occasion to make use of it in making your hop hills; but if it be new dung, then let it be mixed as before till the spring in the next year, for new dung is very injurious to hops.

Dung of all sorts was formerly more commonly made use of than it is now, especially when rotted and turned to mould, and they who have no other manure must use it; which if they do, cows or hogs dung, or human ordure mixed with mud, may be a proper compost, because hops delight most in a manure that is cool and moist.

Planting. Hops require to be planted in a situation so open, as that the air may freely pass round and between them, to dry up and dissipate the moisture, whereby they will not be subject to fire-blatts, which often destroy the middles of large plantations while the outsides remain unhurt.

As for the preparation of the ground for planting, it should, in the preceding winter, be ploughed and harrowed even; and then lay upon it in heaps a good quantity of fresh rich earth, or well rotted dung and earth mixed together, sufficient to put half a bushel in every hole to plant the hops in, unless the natural ground be very fresh and good.

The hills where the hops are to be planted should be eight or nine feet asunder, that the air may freely pass between them; for in close plantations they are very subject to what the hop-planters call the fire-blatt.

If the ground is intended to be ploughed with horses between the hills, it will be best to plant them in squares chequerwise; but if the ground is so small that it may be done with the breast-plough or spade, the holes should be ranged in a quincunx form. Which way ever you make use of, a stake should be stuck down at all the places where the hills are to be made.

Persons ought to be very curious in the choice of the plants as to the kind of hop; for if the hop-garden be planted with a mixture of several sorts of hops that ripen at several times, it will cause a great deal of trouble, and be a great detriment to the owner.

The two best sorts are the white and the gray bind; the latter is a large square hop, more hardy, and is the more plentiful bearer, and ripens later than the former.

There is also another sort of the white bind, which ripens a week or ten days before the common; but this is tenderer, and a less plentiful bearer; but it has this advantage, that it comes first to market.

But if three grounds, or three distant parts of one ground, be planted with these three sorts, there will be this convenience, that they may be picked successively as they become ripe. The sets should be five or six inches long, with three or more joints or buds on them.

If there be a sort of hop you value, and would increase plants and sets from, the superfluous binds may be laid down when the hops are tied, cutting off the tops, and burying them in the hill; or when the hops are dressed, all the cuttings may be saved; for almost every part will grow, and become a good set the next spring.

As to the seasons of planting hops, the Kentish planters best approve the months of October and March, both which sometimes succeed very well; but the sets are not to be had in October, unless from some ground that is to be destroyed; and likewise there is some danger that the sets may be rotted, if the winter prove very wet; therefore the most usual time of procuring them is in March, when the hops are cut and dressed.

As to the manner of planting the sets, there should be five good sets planted in every hill, one in the middle, and the rest round about sloping, the tops meeting at the centre; they must stand even with the surface of the ground; let them be pressed close with the hand, and covered with fine earth, and a stick should be placed on each side the hill to secure it.

The ground being thus planted, all that is to be done more during that summer, is to keep the hills clear from weeds, and to dig up the ground about the month of May, and to raise a small hill round about the plants. In June you must twist the young bind or branches together into a bunch or knot; for if they are tied up to small poles the first year, in order to have a few hops from them, it will not countervail the weakening of the plants.

A mixture of compost or dung being prepared for your hop-ground, the best time for laying it on, if the weather prove dry, is about Michaelmas, that the wheels of the dung-cart may not injure the hops, nor furrow the ground: if this be not done then, you must be obliged to wait till the frost has hardened the ground, so as to bear the dung-cart; and this is also the time to carry on your new poles, to recruit those that are decayed, and to be cast out every year.

If you have good store of dung, the best way will be to spread it in the alleys all over the ground, and to dig it in the winter following. The quantity they will require will be 40 loads to an acre, reckoning about 30 bushels to the load.

If you have not dung enough to cover all the ground in one year, you may lay it on one part one year, and on the rest in another, or a third; for there is no occasion to dung the ground after this manner oftener than once in three years.

Those who have but a small quantity of dung, usually content themselves with laying on about twenty loads upon an acre every year; this they lay only on the hills, either about November, or in the spring; which last some account the best time, when the hops are dressed, to cover them after they are cut; but if it be done at this time, the compost or dung ought to be very well rotted and fine.

Dressing. As to the dressing of the hops, when the hop-ground is dug in January or February, the earth about the hills, and very near them, ought to be taken away Hops. away with a spade, that you may come the more conveniently at the flock to cut it.

About the end of February, if the hops were planted the spring before, or if the ground be weak, they ought to be dressed in dry weather; but else, if the ground be strong and in perfection, the middle of March will be a good time: and the latter end of March, if it be apt to produce over rank binds, or the beginning of April, may be soon enough.

Then having with an iron picker cleared away all the earth out of the hills, so as to clear the flock to the principal roots, with a sharp knife you must cut off all the shoots which grew up with the binds the last year; and also all the young suckers, that none be left to run in the alley, and weaken the hill. It will be proper to cut one part of the stock lower than the other, and also to cut that part low that was left highest the preceding year. By pursuing this method you may expect to have stronger buds, and also keep the hill in good order.

In dressing those hops that have been planted the year before, you ought to cut off both the dead tops and the young suckers which have sprung up from the sets, and also to cover the stocks with fine earth a finger's length in thicknes.

The poling. About the middle of April the hops are to be poled, when the shoots begin to sprout up; the poles must be set to the hills deep into the ground, with a square iron picker or crow, that they may the better endure the winds; three poles are sufficient for one hill. These should be placed as near the hill as may be, with their bending tops turned outwards from the hill, to prevent the binds from entangling; and a space between two poles ought to be left open to the south to admit the sun-beams.

The poles ought to be in length 16 or 20 feet, more or less according as the ground is in strength; and great care must be taken not to overpole a young or weak ground, for that will draw the flock too much and weaken it. If a ground be overpoked, you are not to expect a good crop from it; for the branches which bear the hops will grow very little till the binds have over-reached the poles, which they cannot do when the poles are too long. Two small poles are sufficient for a ground that is young.

If you wait till the sprouts or young binds are grown to the length of a foot, you will be able to make a better judgment where to place the largest poles; but if you lay till they are so long as to fall into the alleys, it will be injurious to them, because they will entangle one with another, and will not clasp about the pole readily.

Maple or aspen poles are accounted the best for hops, on which they are thought to prosper best, because of their warmth; or else, because the climbing of the hop is promoted by means of the roughness of the bark. But for durability, ash or willow poles are preferable; but chestnut poles are the most durable of all.

If after the hops are grown up you find any of them have been under-poled, taller poles may be placed near those that are too short to receive the binds from them.

The tying. As to the tying of hops, the buds that do not clasp of themselves to the nearest pole when they are grown to three or four feet high, must be guided to it by the hand, turning them to the sun, whose course they will always follow. They must be bound with withered rushes, but not so close as to hinder them from climbing up the pole.

This you must continue to do till all the poles are furnished with binds, of which two or three are enough for a pole; and all the sprouts and binds that you have no occasion for are to be plucked up; but if the ground be young, then none of these useless binds should be plucked up, but should be wrapt up together in the middle of the hill.

When the binds are grown beyond the reach of your hands, if they forfeake the poles, you should make use of a stand-ladder in tying them up.

Towards the latter end of May, when you have made an end of tying them, the ground must have the summer dressing: this is done by casting up with the spade some fine earth into every hill; and a month after this is done, you must hoe the alleys with a Dutch hoe, and make the hills up to a convenient signes.

Gathering. About the middle of July hops begin to blow, and will be ready to gather about Bartholomew Tide. A judgment may be made of their ripeness by their strong scent, their hardnefs, and the brownish colour of their seed.

When by these tokens they appear to be ripe, they must be picked with all the expedition possible; for if at this time a storm of wind should come, it would do them great damage by breaking the branches, and bruising and discolouring the hops; and it is very well known that hops, being picked green and bright, will fell for a third part more than those which are discoloured and brown.

The most convenient way of picking them is into a long square frame of wood, called a bin, with a cloth hanging on tenter hooks within it, to receive the hops as they are picked.

The frame is composed of four pieces of wood joined together, supported by four legs, with a prop at each end to bear up another long piece of wood placed at a convenient height over the middle of the bin; this serves to lay the poles upon which are to be picked.

The bin is commonly eight feet long, and three feet broad; two poles may be laid on it at a time, and six or eight persons may work at it, three or four on each side.

It will be best to begin to pick the hops on the east or north side of your ground, if you can do it conveniently; this will prevent the south-west wind from breaking into the garden.

Having made choice of a spot of the ground containing 11 hills square, place the bin upon the hill which is in the centre, having five hills on each side; and when these hills are picked, remove the bin into another piece of ground of the same extent, and so proceed till the whole hop-ground is finished.

When the poles are drawn up to be picked, you must take great care not to cut the binds too near the hills, especially when the hops are green, because it will make the sap to flow excessively.

The hops must be picked very clean, i.e. free from leaves and stalks; and, as there shall be occasion, two or three times in a day the bin must be emptied into a hop-bag made of coarse linen cloth, and carried immediately to the oast or kiln in order to be dried; for if they should be long in the bin or bag, they will be apt to heat and be discoloured.

If the weather be hot, there should no more poles be drawn than can be picked in an hour, and they should be gathered in fair weather, if it can be, and when the hops are dry; this will save some expense in firing, and preserve their colour better when they are dried.

The crop of hops being thus bestowed, you are to take care of the poles against another year, which are best to be laid up in a shed, having first stripped off the haulm from them; but if you have not that convenience, let up three poles in the form of a triangle, or fix poles (as you please) wide at bottom; and having set them into the ground, with an iron picker, and bound them together at the top, set the rest of your poles about them; and being thus disposed, none but those on the outside will be subject to the injuries of the weather, for all the inner poles will be kept dry, unless at the top; whereas, if they were on the ground, they would receive more damage in a fortnight than by their standing all the rest of the year.

Drying. The best method of drying hops is with charcoal on an oast or kiln, covered with hair-cloth, of the same form and fashion that is used for drying malt. There is no need to give any particular directions for making these, since every carpenter or bricklayer in those countries where hops grow, or malt is made, knows how to build them.

The kiln ought to be square, and may be of 10, 12, 14, or 16 feet over at the top, where the hops are laid, as your plantation requires, and your room will allow. There ought to be a due proportion between the height and breadth of the kiln and the beguils of the steddle where the fire is kept, viz. if the kiln be 12 feet square on the top, it ought to be nine feet and a half square, and so proportionable in other dimensions.

The hops must be spread even upon the oast a foot thick or more, if the depth of the curb will allow it; but care is to be taken not to overload the oast if the hops be green or wet.

The oast ought to be first warmed with a fire before the hops are laid on, and then an even steady fire must be kept under them; it must not be too fierce at first, lest it scorch the hops, nor must it be suffered to sink or slacken, but rather be increased till the hops be nearly dried, lest the moisture or sweat which the fire has raised fall back or discolour them. When they have lain about nine hours they must be turned, and in two or three hours more they may be taken off the oast. It may be known when they are well dried by the brittleness of the stalks and the easy falling off of the hop leaves.

It is found by experience that the turning of hops, though it be after the most easy and best manner, is not only an injury or waste to the hops, but also an expense of fuel and time, because they require as much fuel and as long a time to dry a small quantity, by turning them, as a large one. Now this may be prevented by having a cover (to be let down and raised at pleasure) to the upper bed whereon the hops lie.

This cover may also be tinned, by nailing single tin plates over the face of it; so that when the hops begin to dry, and are ready to burn, i.e. when the greatest part of their moisture is evaporated, then the cover may be let down within a foot or less of the hops (like a reverberatory), which will reflect the heat upon them, so that the top will soon be as dry as the lowermost, and every hop be equally dried.

Bagging. As soon as the hops are taken off the kiln, lay them in a room for three weeks or a month to cool, give, and toughen; for if they are bagged immediately they will powder, but if they lie a while (and the longer they lie the better, provided they be covered close with blankets to secure them from the air) they may be bagged with more safety, as not being liable to be broken to powder in treading; and this will make them bear treading the better, and the harder they are trodden the better they will keep.

The common method of bagging is as follows: they have a hole made in an upper floor, either round or square, large enough to receive a hop-bag, which consists of four eels and a half of ell-wide cloth, and also contains ordinarily two hundred and a half of hops; they tie a handful of hops in each lower corner of the bag to serve as handles to it; and they fasten the mouth of the bag, so placed that the hoop may rest upon the edges of the hole.

Then he that is to tread the hops down into the bag, treads the bag on every side, another person continually putting them in as he treads them till the bag is full; which being well filled and trodden, they unrip the fastening of the bag to the hoops, and let it down, and close up the mouth of the bag, tying up a handful of hops in each corner of the mouth, as was done in the lower part.

Hops being thus packed, if they have been well dried, and laid up in a dry place, will keep good several years; but care must be taken that they be neither destroyed nor spoiled by the mice making their nests in them.

Produce. The charge of an acre of hop-ground in most parts of England where hops are cultivated, is computed thus: three pounds for the husbandry, four pounds for the wear of the poles, five pounds for picking and drying, one pound ten shillings for dung, one pound for rent, though in some places they pay four or five pounds an acre yearly for the rent of the land, and ten shillings for tythe; in all 13l. a-year. The hop-planters in England reckon that they have but a moderate return, when the produce of an acre of hops does not fell for more than 30l. They frequently have fifty, sixty, eighty, or a hundred pounds; and in a time of general scarcity considerably more: so that, upon the whole, if the total charge of an acre of hops is computed at fifteen pounds a-year, and its average produce at thirty pounds, the clear profit from an acre will be fifteen pounds a-year. But the plantation of hops has lately so much increased, and the average produce so much exceeded the consumption, that hops have been with many planters rather a loing than a very profitable article.

Uses. In the spring-time, while the bud is yet tender, the tops of the plant being cut off, and boiled, are ate like asparagus, and found very wholesome, and effectual to loosen the body; the heads and tendrils are good. HOP good to purify the blood in the scurvy, and most cutaneous diseases; decoctions of the flowers, and syrups thereof, are of use against pestilential fevers; juleps and apozems are also prepared with hops for hypocondriacal and hysterical affections, and to promote the menses.

A pillow stuffed with hops and laid under the head, is said to procure sleep in fevers attended with a delirium. But the principal use of hops is in the brewery, for the preservation of malt liquors; which by the superaddition of this balsamic, aperient, and diuretic bitter, become less viscid, less apt to turn sour, more detergent, more disposed to pass off by urine, and in general more salubrious. They are said to contain an agreeable odoriferous principle, which promotes the vinous fermentation. When slightly boiled or infused in warm water, they increase its spirituality.

Laws relating to Hops. By 9 Anne, cap. 121. an additional duty of 3d. a pound is laid on all hops imported, over and above all other duties; and hops landed before entry and payment of duty, or without warrant for landing, shall be forfeited and burnt; the ship also shall be forfeited, and the person concerned in importing or landing shall forfeit 5l. a hundred weight; 7 Geo. II. cap. 19. By 9 Anne, cap. 12. there shall be paid a duty of 1d. for every pound of hops grown in Great Britain, and made fit for use, within fix months after they are cured and bagged; and hop-grounds are required to be entered on pain of 40s. an acre. Places of curing and keeping are also to be entered, on pain of 50l. which may be visited by an officer at any time without obtrusion, under the penalty of 20l. All hops shall, within six weeks after gathering, be brought to such places to be cured and bagged, on pain of 5s. a pound. The rebagging of foreign hops in British bagging for sale or exportation, incurs a forfeiture of 10l. a hundred weight; and defrauding the king of his duty by using twice or oftener the same bag, with the officer's mark upon it, is liable to a penalty of 40l. The removal of hops before they have been bagged and weighed, incurs a penalty of 50l. Concealment of hops subjects to the forfeiture of 20l. and the concealed hops; and any person who shall privately convey away any hops, with intent to defraud the king and owner, shall forfeit 5s. a pound. And the duties are required to be paid within fix months after curing, bagging, and weighing, on pain of double duty, two-thirds to the king, and one-third to the informer. No common brewer, &c. shall use any bitter ingredient instead of hops, on pain of 20l. Hops which have paid the duty may be exported to Ireland; but by 6 Geo. II. cap. 1. there shall be no drawback; and by 7 Geo. II. cap. 19. no foreign hops shall be landed in Ireland. Notice of bagging and weighing shall be sent in writing to the officer, on pain of 50l. 6 Geo. cap. 21. And by 14 Geo. III. cap. 68. the officer shall, on pain of 5l. weigh the bags or pockets, and mark on them the true weight or tare, the planter's name and place of abode, and the date of the year in which such hops were grown; and the altering or forging, or obliterating such mark, incurs a forfeiture of 10l.—The owners of hops shall keep at their oasts, &c. just weights and scales, and permit the officer to use them on pain of 20l. 6 Geo. cap. 21. And by 10 Geo. III. cap. 44. a penalty of 100l. is inflicted for false scales and weights. The owners are allowed to use casks instead of bags, under the same regulations. 6 Geo. cap. 21. If any person shall mix with hops any drug to alter the colour or scent, he shall forfeit 5l. a hundred weight. If any person shall unlawfully and maliciously cut hop binds growing on poles in any plantation, he shall be guilty of felony without benefit of clergy. 6 Geo. II. cap. 37.