But the fluctuations were so great that in a few years many became discouraged and lost their holdings, until finally, during the world's hop crop failure of the year 1882, there came to be unheard-of prices for hops, and fully one-third of the crop of the Puyallup Valley was sold for $1.00 per pound. I had that year nearly 100,000 pounds, which averaged me 70 cents per pound.
About this time I had come to realize that the important market for hops was in England, and began sending trial shipments, first, seven bales, then the following year 500 bales, then 1,500 bales, until finally our annual shipments reached 11,000 bales a year, or the equivalent in value of £100,000—half million dollars—said to be at that time the largest export hop trade by any one concern in the United States.
This business could not properly be called a venture; it was simply a growth. The conditions were favorable in that we could produce the choicest hops in the world's market at the lowest price of any kind, and we actually did press the English growers so closely that over fifteen thousand acres of hops were destroyed in that country.
My first hop house was built in 1868—a log house—and stands in Pioneer Park, Puyallup, to this day, and is carefully preserved by the city authorities and doubtless will be until it perishes by the hand of time. We frequently employed from a thousand to twelve hundred people during the harvest time. Until the beginning of the decline of the business, the result of that little start of hop roots had brought over twenty million dollars into the Territory of Washington.
I spent four winters in London on the hop market, and became acquainted with all the leading hop men of the metropolis.
One evening as I stepped out of my office, and cast my eyes towards one group of our hop houses, I thought I could see that the hop foliage of a field nearby was off color—did not look natural. Calling one of my clerks from the office he said the same thing—they did not look natural. I walked down to the yards, a quarter of a mile distant, and there first saw the hop-louse. The yard was literally alive with lice, and were destroying—at least the quality. At that time I issued a hop circular, sending it to over 600 correspondents all along the coast in California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, and before the week was out. I began to receive samples and letters from them, and inquiries asking what was the matter with the hops.