HONEY STONE. A yellow mineral 'found in octohedral crystals at Artern in Thuringia. It is extremely rare. It con sists of a peculiar acid (the melitic acid) combined with alumina and water.
HOP. The Hemet us kupulus of Lin DMUS, the female flowers of which are used for imparting a bitter flavor to malt liquors for the purpose of preserving them from fermentation. The hop plant is a perennial indigenous to Britain and • different parts of Europe ; but, to pro duce abundance of hops, it requires to be very cultivated in good soil, and even then is one of the most preca rious of crops. The fields in which hops are grown are commonly called hop gar dens : a loamy soil on a dry subsoil is chosen, and the plants are placed in hills, stools, or groups of three or four in a group, the hills being in rows five or six feet apart, and at about the same dis tance in the row. A full crop is not produced till the fourth or fifth year after planting. Every year the ground is dug in winter. and kept clear of weeds during summer ; and the hills have poles, gone rally three or four to a hill, for the plants to twine on : the purchase of these poles, the fixing them in the soil every spring, and taking them down and stacking them every autumn, and their removal every five, six, eight, or ten years, ao cording to the kind of wood used, con stitute a considerable part of the expense of hop culture. The hops, when mature, are picked by hand, and as they are picked they are carried to a drying kiln, dried, and packed into bags or pockets; and this is also an expensive process. The hop plant is particularly liable to be injured by insects, by cold and continued rains, and by thunder storms ; in conse quence of which, it is estimated that a full crop is not obtained oftener than above once in five years. Hence it is easy to conceive that the price of hops must vary greatly in different years, and that the grower who has a command of capital may profit largely by keeping them back from market when the prices are low, and only exposing them when they are high. In order to keep hops for
two or tin-es years, they require to be powerfully compressed, and put into much closer canvas bags than when they are to be sent immediately to mar ket; they also require to be kept in dry airy lofts, neither too warm nor too cold.
Hops are a necessary ingredient of malt liquor, as they contain a rich bitter, and an aroma, which modifies the bitter, while its astringent ingredient destroys the fermentation. Quassia, used as a substitute, contains only the bitter, and not the aroma, or the astringent, and therefore fails, except when attempts are made to supply the other qualities of hops by other drugs. Ives has separated the aroma and tannin in a yellow pow der, one-sixth the weight of the hops, in a substance called lupuline.
The strobiles, or female flowers, are dried in charcoal kilns. till five pounds of the green flowers are reduced to one pound, and they are then laid in heaps and bags. Their bitter aromatic arises from a substance called tupulka, forming a sixth part, which may be obtained by merely silting with a fine sieve. They yield also an aromatic oil. A pillow of them is said to promote sleep, and a fo mentation is useful in tumors.
Hops contain several elements of activ ity, not in its substitutes. Its bitter principle is tonic, its aromatic is warm and stimulant, and its astringent quality precipitates the mucilage, and thus .re moves the cause of fermentation. These several properties render it superior to quassia, gentian, etc.