THE FARMER'S. MAGAZINE. 



501 



the gaudiest of this short-lived insect tribe are now abroad — 

 give something of a humming-bird look to the scene ; and 

 what with the blue sky arching high overhead, the swaying 

 of the bine in the faint autumn breeze, tlie perfume and the 

 husky rustle of the primrose-coloured cones, you might fancy 

 that you were in some far-away land of summer, where the 

 roses are always in bloom, and the song of the nightingale is 

 never wholly hushed. A hop-garden resembles nothing so 

 much as the border of one of those sweet green secluded 

 glades which we sometimes stumble suddenly upon, when wan- 

 dering deep into the heart of an old English forest, where the 

 sun, shining through the straight and transparent-leaved 

 hazels, is such a relief to the deep green twilight ; while be- 

 low, there is neither gorse nor bramble, fern nor thorn-bush — 

 nothing but the velvet turf, Nature's own carpet, combed up 

 out of the fallen leaves — for such a path may be found in 

 some of our old picturesque hop-gardens. And here a lover 

 of rural quietude will throw himself down, as Chaucer used to 

 do more than four centuries ago, when he went out to watch 

 the daisy open in the early morning — 



" sloping him to lie 



On his elbow and half his side ;" 



and as he whitTs away at the cigar he has lighted, and 

 watches the smoke curling high amid the gold-coloured cones, 

 trailing stems, nodding tendrils, and in and out as if playing 

 at "hide-and-seek" among the picturesque leaves, he will 

 fancy it is the smoke of a fairy railway train ascending sky- 

 wards, or a little cloud that had got entangled among the net- 

 work of bines ; and as he keeps rubbing the cones in his hands, 

 and staining his fingers with the gold dust, he will fancy that 

 all the flowers ever pounded together, with pearly dew-drops, 

 in the bottom of the morning-star, and presented to Flora by 

 Dis, never threw out a richer aroma than he there inhales.' It 

 is as if all the winds that ever went out Maying tof^elher had 

 made that spot their mustering ground, and there let loose all 

 the collected odours of their flowery treasures, to overwhelm 

 the inhaler with a new and drowsy delight. 



Neither is there any other out-of-door work that seems so 

 much like playing as hop-picking. Reaping is killing work ; 

 mowing is suicide itself if persevered in ; but p'cking hops is 

 play, pleasure, and profit combined ; those who bring up and 

 pluck down the poles seeming to be the only parties who do 

 anything at all in the shape of labour. As for the rest, they 

 sit or stand (nay, we have even seen them lie down to it) 



whichever they please, a dozen of them singing together like 

 one; and there, all garlanded with leaves and hung about with 

 branches of gold, they pass the day as merrily as Ariel did, 



" Under the blossom that hangs on the bough." 



Some bear baskets, others help to fill the hop-pockets, while 

 the younger and merrier ones, when not overlooked, pelt each 

 other with the cones, as that young rascal Love did his 

 mother with roses ; and over all the smell from the oast-house 

 spreads, like the aroma of the a'tars of old, when gathered 

 flowers formed the sacrifice; for the whole neighbourhood 

 tastes of 



" Flora and the country green." 



It seems to be a rule of the hop-garden to compel any 

 stranger that enters it to pay his " footing." His feet are first 

 dusted with a bunch of hops, and then the palm is held out 

 for the customary honorarium, when, should the intruder 

 refuse so proper a demand, he stands a chance of being thrown 

 into a bin, and stifled beneath a flood of hops, by the fair but 

 able-bodied pickers. 



What picturesque groups these pickers ever and anon form 

 along the highway, as they journey to or from the hop- 

 gardens ! One might fancy from their costume that they had 

 made their purchases in Rag Fair, taking down the articles as 

 they came to hand and repairing them afterwards ; for they 

 bear on their backs relics of every fashion and pattern, from 

 the unmistakable cut of Stultz, to that of John Jones, jobbing 

 tailor. Mint-street, Borough. First we have a woman in a 

 man's coat, then a boy in the trousers of a six-feet man, cut 

 off at the knees, with " ample room and verge enough" behind 

 to stow away a bushel of hops. One trudges along in shoes 

 " a world too wide," carrying a kettle in his hand ; while 

 another, eschewing all such torments, trips along barefooted, 

 his head buried in an old bassinet cradle, and chirruping like 

 a bird through the open wicker to the large-eyed and wondering 

 baby, which his cheerful-looking mother is carrying, and which, 

 suspended from the hop-poles, by-and-bye will sing as softly 

 and sleep as soundly as the wealthiest little princess that ever 

 closed her eyes on a feathered cloud of eiderdown. Few of 

 them care what they wear while at work ; yet on a Sunday 

 there may be seen, in the neighbourhood of the hop-gardens, 

 many a beau and belle that you would hardly know again in 

 their patched-up and well-worn hop-picking attire. — Illustrated 

 Times. 



GIPSIES. 



Sir, — In the last letter I addressed you in reference to the 

 state and condition of the New Forest, Hants, I took occasion 

 to draw your attention to the serious evils which emanate from 

 a class of individuals denominated squatters. These persons 

 have, by virtue of a long existing custom and usage, established 

 themselves as separate and distinct colonies, which are ex- 

 tensively distributed throughout this waste. 



It is an ancient admitted plea of justification for a perpetual 

 tenancy, that, if a family can erect a house and occupy the 

 same, free from the ill-effects of wind and weather, within a 

 space of twenty-four clear hours, they become, by virtue of 

 such an accomplishment, tenants in fee of the ground they 

 stand upon, and are suffered thenceforth to enjoy the same as 

 a perpetual freehold. 



From this circumstance, either with a view to promote a 

 spirit of social accommodation, or to secure from external an- 



noyances united support, or both, these people have been pro- 

 gressively encroaching for time immemorial on this sylvan 

 waste, until they have ultimately succeeded in constructing 

 villages, which they are pleased to term toiviis, in which they 

 multiply in numbers, and in crime. 



Being proximate to the coast, immediately opposite the port 

 of Cherbourgh, and in close connexion and constant commu- 

 nication with the Channel Islands, the New Forest presents a 

 most eligible theatre for the encouragement of smuggling, and 

 the greater portion of the inmates of these mud-built wiff- 

 wams are more or less in the practice of carrying on an un- 

 ceasing trade in contraband wares. This lawless practice, 

 combined with deer stealing, and poaching on an unlimited 

 scale, may be looked upon as the chief resources of the villagers 

 under consideration. Some years since, there was a notorious 

 deer stealer, named Jem Dible, who occupied a hut in " deer- 



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