With the great increase in hop-production during the early 'eighties, the romance of hop-picking, on many farms, gave place to a picturesque but undesirable invasion of vagabondage from the large cities. Some farmers continued to choose their pickers from among the better sort of young men and maidens of the neighborhood, but many large growers, requiring a great number of hands for a short season, resorted to the unemployed of neighboring cities, and the result was an annual immigration from Albany, Troy, Binghamton, and other cities farther north, which taxed the capacity of the railways. Among these workers many were honest and capable, but a large part of them were attracted by the prospect of three weeks of board and lodging, with an amount of pay which, if small, was sufficient for a glorious spree. It became the custom in Cooperstown to augment the village police force during the hop-picking season, for city thugs were likely to be abroad, and when the pickers were paid off their revels were apt to become both obnoxious and dangerous. Hops will be seen growing in the summer along the shores and hillsides of Otsego Lake, so long as beer is made; for, aside from the very limited amount required to leaven bread, and the comparatively small amount used in druggists' preparations, there is no use for hops except in the making of beer. But never again will there be in Otsego such luxuriance of hop-culture as that which developed in the 'eighties before the Pacific coast learned to compete successfully with the hop-growers of New York State. Hop-culture is a gamble which in Otsego county has made fortunes for some farmers and brought ruin to others. The growth of the product is singularly at the mercy of freaks of weather, and its preparation for the market is beset by many possibilities of failure. It is a crop of which it is most difficult to count the final cost, or to predict the market price. It has varied in price more than any other product of the soil. In 1878 the entire crop was marketed at from five to twelve cents a pound. But for many years every farmer in Otsego remembered the season of 1882-83, when the average cost of producing a pound of hops was ten cents, and hops were selling at a dollar a pound, so that, as was said at the time, "five pounds of hops could be exchanged for a barrel of flour."[126] Many farmers made money at this time, but some held their hops for an even higher price, and lost. One farmer held thousands of pounds of hops in his great barn, and kept buying in the crops of other farmers, awaiting a price of $1.20, at which he had resolved to sell. Two years later the hops were still in the barn, and nine-tenths of their value was lost. There were other tragedies of this sort, yet for years afterward, while some continued to grow hops at a fair profit, many a farmer in the vicinity of Cooperstown, lured by the hope of a dollar-a-pound season, was kept on the verge of poverty by his faith in the golden vine.