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XXXIV

HOP-BLIGHT

OPS have for many years now been a very uncertain investment for those who, in England, devote capital to the growing, drying, and marketing of this crop. In some years a fortune may be made, in some years a dead loss, in many a bare return of expenditure. Hence, it is not surprising that English hop-growers should wish for legislation which shall make their business more secure by taxing the hops produced in other countries, and imported by our brewers. The whole subject of "hops" is a very complicated one. It is the fact that every plant and animal cultivated by civilised man has led to the accumulation of an astonishing amount of detailed knowledge and experience in each case, and that there are increasing difficulties and surprises in regard to varieties, and the competition of new supplies brought from all quarters of the globe. New areas of cultivation, new methods of transport, new fashion and taste continually disturb, and even destroy, old-established industries. It is for statesmen to consider how far the remorseless current of unforeseen changes should be checked and manipulated, so as to prevent disaster in the old-established and flourishing industries of the countryside.

The hop (called Humulus lupulus by botanists) is a native of this country, and of the more temperate parts of

Europe. The Greeks and Romans never made "beer," and were unacquainted with the use of the hop. More than a thousand years ago the German and Scandinavian peoples made use of various fragrant herbs (sweet gale, bark of tamarisk and oak) to flavour the sweet beer which they brewed from malted grain, just as borage, cucumber, and other plants are still used to flavour "cups." cups." Wild hops were used, amongst other herbs, for this purpose, and gradually-but only gradually-became the favourite source of flavour. The hop owes its selection not merely to its bitter tonic quality, but also to its wonderful and most delicate perfume. Not only that, but the hop is found to be effective in checking continued fermentation and souring and also to have a narcotic sleep-producing quality, for which it is still used medicinally. Distinct chemical compounds are found in hops to which these several properties are due. A warm "hop-pillow ❞—a pillow stuffed with dried hop-flowers-has given, and still gives, sleep to many a wakeful countryman. The older use of other fragrant plants in the making of beer survives in some foreign beers, such as the Norwegian ale, the beer of Louvain, and the "green" spruce-beer of Jena.

Hops were first cultivated with a view to obtaining varieties which would furnish abundant and large, wellflavoured flower-heads. The flower-heads are "cones," consisting of numerous minute flowers, protected by overlapping green-coloured scales or bracts. The cultivated hop was brought to this country in the time of Henry VIII, and the cultivation of hops in hop-gardens and the skilful drying of the flower-heads in large bulk was commenced, and regulated by law. The male or pollenproducing hop-vine is distinct from the female seedbearing hop-vine; it is the female flower-cone which carries the valuable fragrant and resinous products which the brewer desires. Hops are artificially propagated by

root-cuttings, and it is interesting to note that the hopgrower finds that it is not desirable to allow the female flowers to be fertilised, since, although the hops weigh more after the setting of the seed, the valuable extractive substances contained in the flower are diminished, used up in the growth of the seed. Hence, often only one male hop-vine to every 200 female hop-vines is allowed in a hop-garden.

It does not follow because a plant is a native of a given

FIG. 55.-Early winged female hop-louse, produced viviparously by the first generation of daughters of the "Foundress," Fig. 58. These winged females migrate from the plum tree, where they were born, to the hop-vines by aid of their wings, and produce viviparously the form drawn in Fig. 57.

country that it can be easily cultivated anywhere in that country, or that its finest cultivated varieties will be hardy. Only a few limited territories (owing to the nature of the soil, climate, and exposure) in Germany (chiefly in Bavaria), and in Kent, Sussex, Worcestershire, and Herefordshire, seem to be really favourable to hopgrowing in Europe. Certain parts of the Pacific coast of the United States have of late years proved a very successful ground, although hops were introduced from Europe and first cultivated with considerable success in

the State of New York. The same dangers and troubles attend the hop-crop in all these regions. These are blight, red-spider, mildew and mould, besides several less important insect pests. The hop-blight, or "black-blight,” is a plant-louse or aphis (Fig. 55) like the rose-aphis, and does great and increasing damage to the hop-crop in England, destroying the young and tender shoots in the months of June and July. In 1882 the hop-crop was reduced from 459,000 cwt. (of the preceding year) to

(1000x

FIG. 56.—Male hop-louse, not appearing until late autumn.

115,000 cwt. by this insect, and the wages paid for hoppicking from £350,000 to £150,000. These figures give an idea both of the damage done by blight and of the amount and value of the annual crop, for the mere picking of which so large a payment is made. Red-spider is a small mite or acarid which has done a good deal of damage in Kent. But mildew and mould are more serious. These are due to a delicate, thread-like kind of fungus, which spreads on the leaf. Many kinds are known in various parts of the world and on various plants. They may grow on one kind of plant without doing injury to it,

but if they get on to another, cause deadly destruction of the foliage. It was an otherwise harmless mould, or leaffungus, which destroyed the coffee plantations of Ceylon. It had lived in the Ceylon forests on other plants without attracting notice; but when the coffee tree was introduced and cultivated in large areas, this little fungus seized on it, grew with terrible activity, and received the name "vastatrix" from the botanists who traced its history, and showed that it was the destroyer of the coffee plantations. Hop-growers are constantly contending with these pests

Je

FIG. 57.—Ordinary wingless female hop-louse, multi

in the same way as other growers of crops have to contend with similar pests, but the hop-growers have the more difficult and delicate “patient” to steer through its diseases. The finest kinds of hops are not robust; it is a chance whether or no they will suffer from a wet and cold season, or other irregularity of climate, to such a degree as to fall ready victims to plying parthenogenetically blight and mildew. Yet they pay throughout the summer. better, provided the season is favourable, and so the grower risks planting the fine, delicate variety instead of being content with the more certain but smaller profits yielded by a more robust variety of hop. The hop-lice, or blight insects, are destroyed by washing with soft soap and quassia—a process requiring, even when a machine is used, a good deal of care and labour. Mildew and mould are destroyed and also prevented by dusting the hop-vines in hot summer weather with finely powdered sulphur. But both diseases can be combated by keeping the source of infection away from the hop-garden. The mouldfungus can be checked by burning all leaves and plants