We now come to the hop-harvest in the State of New York, and here it is in its glory. The great counties of Otsego, Schoharie, Montgomery, Herkimer, Oneida, Madison, Onondaga, and Ontario lie along, and mostly a little south of the Erie Canal and the New York Central Railroad, between Albany and Rochester, a belt two hundred miles long and fifty miles wide. Franklin and Lewis counties, along the Canadian frontier of New York, have also a considerable hop interest, but for our present purpose we shall confine ourselves to the region situated in the belt we have mentioned, bounded by Albany on the East and Rochester on the West, and dotted, along its whole length of two hundred miles, with the cities of Albany, Schenectady, Amsterdam, Utica, Rome, Syracuse, Auburn and Rochester. Towns and villages of from one to two and three thousand inhabitants, many of them manufacturing towns, and all of them full of women and children willing to work and eager to rusticate for a time, are scattered all over the hop-belt; and from this long line of populous cities, and these thickly settled towns and villages, come the pickers for the hop-harvest. On or about the first day of September, they come with a rush, and usually find a demand equal to the supply. For weeks the hop-grower’s good wife has been preparing for them; beds, rough, but comfortable and clean, are set up in every building on the farm—in the house for the women and children, and in the out-buildings (sometimes put up for the purpose), for the men and boys. Bread is baked by the barrel; “doughnuts” are fried by the bushel. The farmer has already engaged his pickers in the neighboring cities or villages, and, on the appointed day, in they come, some by wagons, sent out the day before to the city, often twenty miles away, some by special railroad trains, chartered for the purpose, and some on foot. Whole families are in the crowd, father, mother and all the children, from the active boy or girl of fifteen years, who can pick two or three boxes, and earn a dollar a day, down to the baby whom the mother takes out into the field and watches while she picks her box, and earns its clothing for the coming winter.
These families are frequently those of hard-working mechanics in the cities, who are glad to give their wives and children an outing in the fresh air for three or four weeks, and find them all the richer and happier by reason of the escape from the stony and dirty streets of their urban home. It is a picnic for the children, and their pranks, when they first arrive, are a sore trial to the steady farmer and his wife. But after the first day’s work (from six in the morning until twelve at noon, and from 12:30 P.M. until six at night) is over, they are well sobered down for bed, and their surplus energies are thereafter turned into the channel that leads to the hop-box in the morning and to bed at night. Many a poor factory girl finds in the hop-fields the only fresh country air she breathes in the whole year; and while she is laying in the year’s stock of health, her nimble fingers are bringing to her more money than the work in the stifling mill.
To the hop-grower, the harvest, by reason of high prices for hops, is sometimes very profitable. Sometimes, by reason of low prices, it is very unsatisfactory. But to the poor families in the surrounding towns and villages it is always a blessing; for, no matter whether the price of hops be high or low, the compensation for picking is always the same. Let us see how it foots up. The hop-crop of the United States amounts to about 200,000 bales, of 180 pounds each. It takes fifteen boxes for a bale, and for each box the picker is paid about fifty cents cash, or its equivalent in cash and board. Fifteen boxes at fifty cents each makes $7.50; hence, for 200,000 bales the pickers receive about fifteen hundred thousand dollars.
We have taken a round number which does not accurately represent the actual production for the year 1908, for in that year the American hop-growers produced about 216,660 bales or 39,000,000 pounds of hops—a comparatively very small quantity; in fact, 11,000,000 pounds less than in the preceding year and 21,000,000 pounds less than in the year 1906.
There are two reasons for this decrease, viz.: 1. because between 1901 and 1907 the production of beer increased at an unusual rate and the growers extended their operations accordingly, running perhaps a trifle ahead of prospective demand; 2. because as a result of the panic the production of beer has decreased.
Up to 1899 New York produced the largest quantity of hops; thereafter Oregon took and maintained first place and from 1902 to the present time California wrested even second place from New York, so that in point of production this State now holds the third place among the four hop-producing States of our country, the fourth being Washington. Less than one per centum of the total quantity of hops raised in the United States is produced outside of these four States in each of which hop-culture is confined to a few counties. This peculiar localization obtains in all countries, Germany excepted.
The United States, Germany, Austro-Hungary, Russia and New Zealand are the only countries which produce more hops than they consume. The quantity exported from Germany is largest, almost equal to the exportation from the United States and Austro-Hungary combined.
For the years 1895 to 1899 the average annual exportation from the United States amounted to 15,827,630 pounds; and from 1900 to 1904 to 11,863,626 pounds; the average annual imports during the same periods amounted to 2,414,966, and 3,704,411 pounds, respectively. In 1906 and 1907 the exportation amounted to 17,701,436 and 16,099,950 pounds, respectively.
The available but unused area of soil suitable for the cultivation of hops, the fertility of such soil (in the Pacific States), and the favorable climate secure to American brewing an abundance of material for all future time, no matter how rapidly and extensively the industry may develop hereafter. In all likelihood the insignificant importation of Bohemian and German hops, noted for their superior quality, will cease entirely within a few years when the laudable efforts of the United States Agricultural Department to improve and perfect the quality of the American product shall have accomplished its purpose.