The Pindar Brothers were true holdouts in their business of growing hops in our region. It was the autumn of 1952 when the last harvest took place on the farm of William and the late Henry Pindar of Middleburgh. This was long after most other growers had given up on hops.
Where the Pindars grew their hops is very recognizable to a motorist today as one drives southbound on state Route 145 toward Middleburgh. A vast field is to the right as you approach the intersection of state Route 30. While corn grows in that field today, if you use your imagination ,you might envision line after line of 10-to-15-foot poles with twining vines growing on them. It was once considered the largest hop field in the country. The vines produced small cones that were harvested and sold to breweries for production of beer.
Hops became an agricultural industry just after Solomon Root sold the first crop in 1816, two tons for about $2,000 in Madison. James Coolidge is credited with being the pioneer grower, starting his plants in 1808. From the beginning in Madison County, the industry spread to nearby counties. Using today's U.S. Route 20 as a reference, the area spread from Sharon Springs to Cazenovia with a north-south axis of 20-to-30 miles in each direction.
Small crops were grown at first, but by mid-century hop production reached about 3 million pounds annually, making New York the national leader in hops.
William Pindar once wrote in the Schoharie County Historical Review that his grandfather started raising hops around 1890, so they were a fairly late arrival into the industry, but nevertheless successful.
The hop industry boomed until a series of bad events struck the region's growers. In 1909 the crop was hit with a form of mildew, and efforts to defeat the disease failed. Farmers continued attempts at growing a crop, but after two bad seasons most had given up. In 1914, still more farmers were devastated when an extreme attack of hop aphids took place.
Any remaining hop growers in the region were dealt a blow in 1919 by the federal government, with the passage of the National Prohibition Act, which banned the sale, manufacture and transportation of alcohol for consumption.
With no more need for hops, the hop yards were plowed up, other crops were planted, and the barns and equipment were converted to other uses or just left to rot.
Fourteen years later, "The Noble Experiment" had proven to be a failure, and the 18th Amendment to the Constitution was repealed.
The Pindar family had apparently never given up on growing hops again someday. In 1933, the Pindars received hop roots from California to set 12 acres on the land for that year with plans to plant more in coming years. It takes two to three years before a crop can be harvested.
While Prohibition was in progress, experts had been at work finding ways to fight the diseases that had killed the hop industry earlier, so it became possible to get hops growing again in our region.
The hop industry saw a bit of a revival at this point. Henry Pindar was appointed by Gov. Herbert Lehman in October 1934 as a member of a committee to confer with the state's secretary of agriculture to promote the growth of hops.
The new effort never fully caught on, as the May 28, 1953, edition of The Middleburgh News reported that the last hop yard, that of Henry and William Pindar, had been "planted to corn."
New hop growing areas in northern California, Oregon and the Yakima Valley in Washington had emerged, where the drier climates and higher yields per acre allowed for easier and less costly harvesting methods.
Limited hop growing still exists in the region, but for specialty purposes. The future of hop growing has potential, given a recent growth in home brewing, brew pubs and microbreweries.
On Monday: "Say You, Can You Moo?"
City Historian Mark Simonson's column appears twice weekly. On Saturdays, his column focuses on the area during the Depression and before. His Monday columns address local history after the Depression. If you have feedback or ideas about the column, write to him at The Daily Star, or e-mail him at simmark@stny.rr.com.
His website is
www.oneontahistorian.com.
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