The Boom and Bust of Washington Hops
An 1887 agricultural columnist dissects the volatile global hop market, warning Pacific Northwest farmers against reckless expansion while grappling with the realities of 'hired hand' labor versus high-yield ambitions.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
As I passed up the White River yesterday, I saw rafts of hop-poles in the river. At Stuck Junction, or near it, were hop-pole camps. At Puyallup, farmers are and have been for weeks busy hauling hop-poles made by the Indians on their own land. Everywhere the preparation is going on to plant hops. Our hop acreage will be increased at least 15 percent, and some say more. While this is going on here, different news comes from England, New York and Germany. My New York correspondent writes: 'The reduction of acreage is estimated at about ten thousand acres. It is a candid fact that one-fifth of the hop hills are dead and the rest more or less diseased.'
If we of Washington Territory (how I hate the idea that I must yet write 'Territory' instead of plain Washington, as a State) are formidable competitors, we are crowding the old hop districts out. These things all tell in our favor, and if we will be discreet and not go too fast, we will have made a permanent advance. But, nevertheless, I say be careful; do not go into out-of-the-way places inaccessible to pickers and market facilities to plant hops, or upon unsuitable and untried grounds. Our limit is only in the ability to deliver and sell at a profit. It is estimated that not less than a quarter of a million pounds of the incoming hop crop of Washington has been already contracted to be delivered at 15 cents per pound, although at this writing (March 17th) not a hop-pole is set, a hill grubbed or a furrow run.
“Do not go into out-of-the-way places inaccessible to pickers and market facilities to plant hops, or upon unsuitable and untried grounds; for, as sure as fate, if you do you will lose.”
In 1887, the hop industry was the central pillar of Washington’s speculative agricultural economy, mirroring modern Seattle’s boom-and-bust cycles in tech and housing. The author’s caution against over-extending into inaccessible, unvetted land echoes the precariousness of modern real estate development in the rapidly expanding Puget Sound region.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.