Today in 1938, US Patent 2139029 A was issued, an invention of George E. Miller, for his “Hop Picking Machine.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:
This invention relates to a hop picking machine, and especially to improvements in the construction and operation thereof.
The object of the present invention is generally 5 to improve and simplify the construction and operation of hop picking machines; to provide a machine which will not only pick or remove the hops from the vines, but also from arms and clusters broken and pulled off the vines during the picking operation; to provide a machine which employs belts and cooperating drums mounted above them, said belts and cooperating drums .being provided with picking fingers which comb a the vines from opposite sides to remove the hops; to provide an endless flexible diamond-‘ meshed wire screen belt which is disposed below the picking belts, and cooperates therewith, to pick arms and break up clusters; to provide a machine which is divided into two picking zones, 80 one zone’in which the picking fingers are comparatively widely separated and where the major portion of the hops are removed, and a second zone in which the picking fingers are closely spaced to strip the vines of the remaining hops; to provide a picking machine which provides almost immediate liberation or removal of the hops from the picking zones, so as to prevent damage or breakage of the hops after they have been removed from the vines by the picking fingers; to provide a picking machine which tends to flatten out and spread the vines as they pass through and between the picking fingers. so as to insure a more thorough picking or removal of the hops; to provide means for separating the hops from leaves which are accidentally removed during the picking operation; and further, to provide means for automatically releasing and removing the vines from the machine when picked.
