Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/467

 or pecuniary

effect of the business by people who take sides on the question of prohibition of the manufacture and sale of the beer, there can be no doubt that there is vast sums of money dependent on the production and sale of malt liquors made from Oregon hops. The first cost of the beer, the money paid to the Oregon brewers, must be more than two million dollars, of which sum probably twenty-five thou- sand dollars goes to Oregon farmers for the hops, taking one year with another.

But the hop growing farmers would have but a poor market for their hops if they had to depend on the consumption, or even the manufacture of beer in Oregon. Oregon hops are exported to the eastern cities, and to England and even Germany. Oregon produces more hops than any other state in the Union. And her farmers gather in on an average crop and price year, three million seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, for the entire crop. Some years, that in- come has been doubled. And on average years two and a half million dollars of the price of the hops is paid out for labor in producing, picking, curing and packing the hops. The hop picking season is a great event in the Willamette val- ley. Entire families, thousands of them, going as far as fifty miles, gather into the hop fields with their tents and primitive means of cooking and sleeping; and the men, women and children all join in picking hops with all their time and energy for three or four weeks, being paid so much a pound for the hops picked, and gathering in cash enough to supply many families with the necessities of life for half a year.

The hop farming industry in Oregon started near Silverton, in Marion county, and near Eugene City in Lane county, about the same time, about the year 1865, and has grown steadily ever since. The hop merchants of Portland handle most of the business. The hop industry has produced many curious "ups" and "downs" in business. We knew one farmer who did not sell his hops on account of low prices for three years, and had on hand three crops — Ralph Geer of Waldo Hills, in Marion county. C. H. Lewis, of Allen & Lewis of Portland, had ad- vanced money to pick all these hops. In the third year hops went up to a dollar a pound. Mr. Lewis sent a special messenger with a letter to Mr. Geer, telling him to sell his hops at once. Geer thought the price would go to a dollar and a quarter a pound, and held on. The next day the price dropped and kept on dropping until they reached fifteen cents a pound. Geer had then to sell under forced sales — and was financially ruined.

Growing hops for beer cannot be said to be a very reliable business. Beer and ale is consumed regularly by only a small part of the American people. And many of these consumers find it easily dispensed with when economy of living becomes necessary. In Germany, it is different. Whether the water in that country is too bad to drink, the fact is that nearly the entire German population drink beer. The price of hops in Germany practically fixes the price of hops in Oregon. Pursuing its national policy of being an independent, self-supporting people, the Germans strive to raise all their own hops. When the crop fails in Germany, the price rises in Oregon; and two succeeding German failures sends the price to great profits to Oregon growers. These irregularities have often betrayed Oregon farmers into planting larger fields of hops and building greater hop houses. And then it has often happened that as the price ran down in Ger- many, the Oregon farmer would dig up his hop plantation and go out of busi- ness at great loss on hop houses and other such permanent investments.