Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/168

156 educational institutions. The extensive foreign commerce which Hoorn enjoyed in the and  has almost entirely vanished ; but there is still a good trade with other parts of the Netherlands, especially in cheese and cattle. The annual export of cheese is about 23,000 tons. Saw-mills and boat-building yards are the chief industrial establishments. The population was 8780 in 1870, and 9763 in 1876. Of the 9391 inhabitants in the commune in 1870, 5112 belonged to the Dutch Reformed Church, 2954 were Roman Catholics, and 386 were Jews.

1em  HOP (German, Hopfen; French, koublon), Humulus Lupulus, L., the sole representative of its genus, an her baceous twining plant, belonging to the natural order Can- nabinacece, which is by some botanists included in the larger group called Urticaccce by Endlicher. It is of com mon occurrence in hedges and thickets in the southern counties of England, but is believed not to be native in Scotland. On the Continent it is distributed from Greece to Scandinavia, and extends through the Caucasus and Central Asia to the Altai Mountains. It is common, but doubtfully indigenous, in the northern and western States of North America, and has been introduced into Brazil, Australia, and the Himalayas. It is a dioecious perennial plant, producing annually several long twining roughish striated stems, which twist from left to right, are often 15 to 20 feet long, and climb freely over hedges and bushes. The leaves are stalked, opposite, 3-5 lobed, and coarsely serrate, and bear a general resemblance to those of the vine, but are, as well as the whole plant, rough to the touch ; the upper leaves are sometimes scarcely divided, or quite entire. The stipules are interpetiolar, each consisting of two lateral ones united, or rarely with the tips free. The mile inflorescence (fig. 1, A) forms a panicle ; the flowers consist of a small greenish five -parted perianth (a) enclosing five stamens, whose anthers (6) open by terminal slits. The female inflorescence (fig. 1, B) is less conspicuous in the yoang state. The catkin or strobile consists of a number of small acute bracts, with two sessile ovaries at their base, each subtended by a rounded bractlet (c). Both the bracts and bractlets enlarge greatly during the development of the ovary, and form, when fully grown, the membranous scales of the strobile (fig. 2, a). The bracts can then only be distinguished from the bract- Jets by being rather more acute and more strongly veined. The perianth (fig. 1, d) is short, cup-shaped, undivided, and closely applied to the ovary, which it ultimately encloses. In the young strobile the two purple hairy styles (e) of each ovary project beyond the bracts. The ovary contains a single exalbuminous seed, containing a spirally-coiled embryo (fig. 2, I).

The ovary and the base of the bracts are covered with a yellowish powder, consisting of minute sessile grains (see vol. iv. p. 91, fig. 48) called lupulin or lupulinic glands (see vol. i. p. 381). These glands (fig. 2, c) are stated by Stoddart to be from 77^ to T -J -$ inch in diameter, like flat tened subovate little saucers in shape, and attached to a short pedicel ; by the expansion of the central portion during growth their apex ultimately becomes convex instead of concave. The upper or hemispherical portion consists of a delicate continuous membrane, and the lower part of tabular polyhedric cells. The stalk is not perceptible in the gland as found in commerce. When fresh the gland is seen to be filled with a yellowish or dark brown liquid ; this on drying contracts in bulk and forms a central mass. The contents of these glands, according to Lermer, are chiefly wax (myricylic palmitate) and resins, one of which is crystalline and unites with bases ; with these the bitter acid of hops is present in small proportion. It is to these lupulinic glands that the medicinal properties of the hop are chiefly due. By careful sifting, about 1 oz. may be ob tained from 1 Ib of hops, but the East Kent variety is said to yield more than the Sussex hops. In hop gardens a few male plants, usually three or four to an acre, are sometimes planted, that number being deemed sufficient to fertilize the female flowers. It is stated, how ever, that the female plant produces sufficient male flowers for self-fertilization (Royle). The blossoms are produced in August, and the strobiles are fit for gathering from the beginning of September to the middle of October, accord ing to the weather. The cultivation of hops for use in the manufacture of beer dates from an early period. In the and  hop gardens, called &quot;humularia&quot; or &quot; humuleta,&quot; existed in France and Germany. In the herbarium of Apuleius, the hop (&quot; hymele &quot;) is said to have been put in the usual drinks of England on account of its good qualities. Until the, however, hops appear to have been grown in a very fitful manner, and to a limited extent, generally only for private consumption; but after the commencement of the the cultivation increased rapidly. At the present time England 