Page:Circular, United States Department of Agriculture, Division of Botany.djvu/176

 machine fastened to the end of a pole. In the former case one end of a twine is first attached to a hook, and the latter is then caught on the end of a long pole and hooked over the wire at the desired place, immediately above the plant for which the twine is to serve as support. The lower end of the twine is fastened to a short stake driven into the ground by the side of the plant. No binders are required to fasten the plant to these twine supports. The cost, during the summer, of caring for a garden on the wire system is considered 20 per cent less than that of caring for one with poles

The cuttings are planted in April at the bottom of holes dug with a mattock, being placed in pairs close together with their upper ends 7 inches below the surface of the soil. As the cuttings grow the holes are gradually filled up with earth until level with the ground. Although old hop plants admittedly produce a superior quality of hop, they bear scantily, and it has been found that seven years is the limit of profitable cultivation, both from the standpoint of the plants and in order to allow a suitable rotation with lucern (alfalfa), the favorite green manure. Great stress is laid upon the pruning in the spring, care being taken that the last year's stems are cut back to the old stock, and only two or three new shoots allowed to grow. The hop gardens are models of clean culture, scarcely a weed being seen anywhere, and every square inch of soil is utilized. Farmyard manure is the only fertilizer used to any extent, although potash and phosphoric acid fertilizers are being introduced.

As the hop of commerce is the seedless flower cluster of the female plant, quite naturally only plants of this sex are cultivated in the gardens, although male plants are sometimes seen in cultivated fields. The greatest pains are taken to immediately root out any of the chance male plants which have come up from seed or have otherwise gotten into the garden. In Auscha there are old laws which enforce their immediate removal. Such male plants are called wild hops and are most abundant in waste places about the gardens. A single male plant in a garden will fertilize enough females to materially injure the whole harvest by the formation of a high percentage of seed in the otherwise seedless flowers. When the number of hops with seeds reaches more than two-tenths of one per cent they are rated in Bohemia as of second grade quality. I was told in Saaz