Well known for their use
in beer, hops (Cannibaceae Humulus lupulus) are native to North
America. The hop vine, upon which grow the blossoms used in brewing,
is similar in appearance to the grape vine except that it has rough leaves
and stems. Closely related to hemp (and marijuana), the vines will
grow up to thirty feet in length and have sets of leaves every foot or
so. Around the first week of August the blossoms, or strobiles, begin
to grow out of the vine where the leaves are attached. The blossoms
are not considered hops until they are nearly ripe. When the hops
are ripe and ready to be picked around the first week of September, the
strobiles can be as large as three inches long, and the stems will measure
three or four inches. Only the female hop plant grows the blossom.
The male plants have clusters of very small flowers and were kept out of
the hop yards as they caused the female blossoms to go to seed instead
of turning into hops. The male hop vine is extremely scarce.
While finding several dozen hop vines in the past fifteen years of searching
the countryside, I have found but one male vine.
Although hops were cultivated
by the Dutch in New Netherland by the late 1690s, hop growing did not become
important in New York until the first decade of the nineteenth century.
Before 1850 the State of Vermont led the nation in hop production.
By that time New York's hop yield was just over two and one-half million
pounds a year. By 1879 New York hop fields covered over forty thousand
acres, and produced almost twenty two million pounds that year. But,
by 1899 hop production in New York State was down to a little over seventeen
million pounds annually, and by 1920 there were almost no hops grown for
commercial purposes in the State. The primary cause for the drop
and final end of hop farming in the state can be found in the states of
Wisconsin, Oregon and Washington, where new hop fields were opened in the
1880s. Prohibition and a strong temperance movement also greatly
effected the amount of hops produced.
The main hop producing area
in New York State was the eastern central region, namely Madison, Onondaga,
Otsego, Oneida and Chenango Counties.
Even though most farmers
gave up growing hops around the turn of the century a very few still have
plants around for old-times-sake. Many times the vines can be found
growing along the edges of the long abandoned hop yards.
Hop growing was an art in
itself. A lot of care and hard work went into each plant to ensure
its survival and proper growth. To get a hop yard started the roots
of a hop plant would be cut into pieces about three inches long, having
one or two eyes similar to a those on a potato. The roots of a hop
vine can grow to be some ten or fifteen feet long after several years.
These pieces were buried in the soil, fertilized, and left for two weeks
so they may heal up and grow new shoots. The roots were then dug
up and the dead and damaged ones sorted out. The small root sections
were then buried in small hills of dirt where a new hop yard was to be
started. A five foot stake was placed into the center of the small
mound to hold the small vines that would grow the first year.
When the vines began to
grow, the young shoots, called "snake heads", would be tied loosely to
the stake to hold them in place and train them. The small hills of
soil were placed seven to eight feet apart in rows also seven to eight
feet apart, which made for easy cultivation and better growth. There
were approximately eight hundred hills per acre and a good year would yield
up to two thousand pounds of dried hops per acre. The yards would
produce a healthy crop for about a decade and every ten years or so a new
field would have to be started.
The new hop plants needed
to be fertilized when they were planted. Manure was used and kept
them healthy and growing all year. Cultivation was first done by
hand, and later in the year with horse drawn cultivators, which were dragged
up, down and across the rows. When the cultivating was done the grower
would use a hoe and remove the weeds from around the base of the mounds.
To make weed control easier and to get more from the field, other crops
were often planted between the rows of hop vines. Corn, beans, potatoes,
and pumpkins were among those that were planted. The husking corn,
or sweet corn would be planted with three hills of corn between the two
hills on which the hops grew. The potatoes, beans and pumpkins would
have been planted between the rows of vines.
In the first year blossoms
would grow on the vines, but they would not be of a good enough quality
or quantity to warrant hiring pickers to harvest them, and they were left
on the vine.
The second year larger poles
would be set. These poles up to twenty feet tall were set in the
center of the small hill where the vines were planted. The
ends of the poles were buried deep enough to hold the heavy vines, yet
not so deep as to be difficult to remove come harvest time. The poles
were anchored to each other by a network of wires or strings. These
were run from the top of one pole to another across the rows, and from
the top of one pole to the middle of another running with the rows.
When the vines began to grow up each spring they were wound around the
pole and wires to train them and to spread them out so that they could
get more light.
After the poles were reset
each spring the farmer would hoe around them to remove weeds and loosen
the soil before the young vines began to appear. This was usually
done by the first of May.
When the vines first came
up the best vines would be selected and tied to the pole. Those that
were reddish in color, being a weaker vine, were tied over several times
so they could strengthen. The reddish vines would grow well but it
was found that they did not produce very many blossoms.
Cultivation and fertilization
would continue until the blossoms began to grow, which began around the
first week of August. A layer of manure would be put on in the spring,
and lime was added to make the manure decay faster and to keep the scent
from attracting animals. This was often covered with a final layer
of dirt to keep the lime from blowing away.
The lime was taken from
quarries near Chittenango Falls and Perryville to name a few places locally.
Some farmers, if the geology was right, even burned their own lime in lime
kilns, producing only what lime they could use. Lime was also known
by the farmers as plaster.
What remained of the manure
and lime was kicked off the mound the following spring and more would be
put on, this being done each year.
Plant diseases were one
problem that plagued the hop farmers. Mildew and Blue Mold were the
most common of these dreaded diseases.
Kendall Cody, who was ninety-one
when I interviewed him in he fall of 1977 while preparing this article,
said that the year he was born (1886, he was "a hop farmer from way back")
the hop crop was a failure because of mildew. He commented that "it
was so bad that when the horse came down from the hop yard their backs
were covered with mildew". This was long before the use of herbicides
and insecticides, although it is said that some desperate farmers tried
to smoke the molds out by burning brimstone in the fields.
Blue mold was one of the
main reasons that many farmers quit the hop growing business. Blue
mold is much like the mold on bread, and would attack only the blossoms
or strobiles, and not damage the vine. It would destroy every thing
on the blossom, except the core. It is said that the Blue Mold came
from Europe as did many diseases.
To prevent the entire crop
from being destroyed by these uncontrollable diseases the fields were often
planted as far away as possible from other fields, usually in the far corners
of the farm. Today, with the use of chemicals, hop yards can cover
several hundred acres.
Another problem was small
grubs that would eat the stringy roots of the vine. Skunks were considered
good in the hop yard as the would eat the grubs without doing much damage
to the roots or vines. Mr. Cody said that he didn't mind them in
the hop yard, but "I don't like them around the back door".
The blossoms begin to grow
in the first or second week of August, and it takes three or four weeks
until the blossoms turn into hops. By the first of September they
are ready to be harvested.
Many
of the pickers came from nearby farms and villages (click the
link for a picture) and would go from farm to farm picking hops.
Many of them were also migrant workers. Some of the pickers that
worked on the Cody farm came by train from Chittenango. They would
arrive at the station in Cazenovia in the morning and one of the hired
hands would take a wagon in and pick them up and bring them to the farm.
The pickers were usually women and children, the men doing the drying,
carrying and work in the kiln, although they occasionally did the picking.
The women would pick from mid morning until about four o'clock in the afternoon,
as they still had work to do at home, or at the small camps which the migrant
workers would sometimes set up in the vicinity of the farms they were picking
at. Children were let out of school to help with the picking, which
could last three or four weeks.
In picking the hops from
the vines the hop vines were pulled down from the poles and wires, bunched
up and taken to a box were four pickers worked sifting through the coarse
and dry gnarled vines pulling off the ripe strobiles. Some farmers
would cut the strings or wire and remove the entire pole from the ground
and carry this to the hop picker's box. The poles would be leaned
upon a bar that was in place several feet above the box, and the pickers
would pick from the vines hanging from the pole. Most growers had
a hop wagon which looked much like a small version of a hay wagon.
A horse pulled the wagon through the yard and picked up the bunches of
vines or poles and took them to a central picking place. Some enterprising
farmers, hoping to cut down on labor expense, even tried to invent their
own automatic picking machines. These inventions usually did not
succeed, and picking by hand continued to be the least expensive method.
By the 1930s automatic pickers had become successful in the large scale
hop yards, and soon picking was done entirely by machine.
When the hop picker's box
was full the contents were taken to the hop kiln where the hops would be
carefully dried. The hop kiln was a building that usually had four
rooms, one for storage, one for drying, one for pressing and a room beneath
the drying room that held a very large stove and a unique system of heating
pipes. Mr. Cody pointed out that the hop kiln on his farm, which
had been built by his father in 1884 was typical of nearly every hop house.
They were almost always
different on the outside, but the interior
was always the same. (click the links for pictures)
After picking they were taken
to the storage room where they were kept until they had enough to dry a
full batch, or until the previous batch was finished and removed from the
drying room. In the drying room, which was on the second floor of
the barn, the hops were dumped onto the floor
which was made of long wooden slats. (Click the link for a picture)
The three-quarter by one and one-quarter inch slats were spaced about three-quarters
of an inch apart, and nailed down so as to make a strong yet porous floor.
The spaces between the slats allowed the hot air and smoke from the brimstone
fire below to pass through and dry and bleach the hops. To keep the
hops from falling through the slats, the floor was covered with a type
of burlap known as kiln cloth.
To minimize heat loss the
drying room and stove room below were built to be as airtight as possible,
yet allowing the needed circulation of fresh air in at the bottom and hot
humid air out at the top. The interiors of the stove and drying rooms
were nearly always either plastered or covered with flush boarding.
There were small vents to let air in at the foundation and a cowl or vent
at the peak of the roof to let the "used heat" out.
Fifteen feet below the drying
room was the stove. They were usually large stoves, the one used
in the Cody hop kiln being five or six feet tall. Both wood and coal
were used in the stove. Wood was used during the day, and coal was
used at night as it did not need tending as often as the wood.
It would take about twelve
to fourteen hours to dry a large kiln of hops. An average size kiln
would hold sixty to eighty boxes with seven bushels to a box. The
temperature inside the kiln was kept between 125 and 200 F.
To bleach the hops, brimstone, which is mostly sulfur, was put in a kettle
on top of the stove and set on fire. This gave off a pungent smoke
that went up through the slats and bleached the hops to a more desirable
greenish color. If the hops were not bleached they would be a dry
brownish yellow color. The brimstone was used only five or six hours.
To be sure that the hops were dried evenly they were turned every three
to four hours. Turning the hops was not a welcome task, as the temperature
within the drying room was kept over 125 degrees, and the air was humid.
The stove had to be kept going at all times during the drying process,
as the hops would settle if the temperature dropped, causing problems with
the desired uniform drying of the hops. Before the hops were dried,
a box, containing seven bushels, would weigh about seventy-five pounds.
After drying, a box would weigh only ten to thirteen pounds.
Several feet beneath the
floor of the drying room ran the stove pipe. In the Cody hop kiln
there was a large sheet metal funnel over the stove that caught much of
the rising heat and sent it through a series of stove pipes that circled
beneath the drying room floor. The pipes would, more or less, distribute
the heat more evenly than the stove itself could. The pipes then
led into the chimney which carried off the excess heat and smoke.
As the stove itself was not directly connected to the chimney, and with
the use of the flammable brimstone, there was a constant danger of fire.
Mr. Cody could not recall hearing of a hop kiln burning down, even though
there was the great threat of fire.
After the hops were dried
they were taken to the storage room where they were set to cool for about
an hour. The hops were then shoveled through a hole in the floor
where they were bagged and pressed.
In the lower room was the
hop presser. Mr. Cody's hop press was manufactured by H.D. Babcock
of Leonardsville, NY The press was opened and a sack was placed in
the bottom. The press was then closed and hops were loaded into the
top. They were then pressed and more hops were loaded in and pressed.
This was repeated several times, until the hops were compressed into a
bail weighing between 150 and 175 pounds. If it weighed more than
that the buyer might think that there was something else in there besides
hops.
To get a good price for
the hops the farmer would have to have a good sample of his crop to show
to the buyers. Many farmers would grow a variety of hops called Kennedy
Hops along with the regular crop of what they called Cluster Hops.
The Kennedy vines produced a greener and better looking hop which were
mixed in with the regular hops and the buyer would look at it and smell
it to see how good it was. A lot of inexperienced hop growers over
dried and over bleached their hops, and therefore could not get a good
price for them. The price of hops was very inconsistent. The
hops could be selling for twenty cents a pound one day and the next you
could not even sell them. The selling price would range from two
cents to a dollar a pound, and to get the best price the intelligent hop
grower would keep posted on the daily fluctuations of the market.
A man who lived in Morrisville
would buy the hops from Mr. Cody, and other farms all over Madison County,
and then sell them to a brewer in Waterville. There were many small
breweries in communities throughout the hop district.
The breweries use the hops
to add the bitter taste to beer. The fragrant oils are extracted
from the hops by boiling and pressing them, and straining the juices.
This extract is known as wort. Sugar, water and other ingredients
are add to the wort, and the concoction is fermented to produce the beer.
Although hop farming is
now done on a much larger scale, and more machines are used, the skill
and care that went into the growing nd production of the hop is still an
important factor in the production of a valuable crop.
