184 Corn and Corn Products Trades 



district, chiefly at Upton and Ledbury, but Bristol, too, sent buyers, 

 and of late years London dealers had bought large quantities. The 

 liquor was sold either immediately from the press, or after the first 

 racking, or ready for market in casks, or occasionally in bottles. The 

 growers generally objected to selling the fruit, as thereby they lost 

 the washing of the 'must' for family liquor, and most of the Hquor 

 was sold straight from the press, the dealers preferring to have the 

 fermenting of it and an opportunity of suiting the taste of their cus- 

 tomers. The London and Bristol dealers had places in or near the 

 county, chiefly at Upton and Hereford, where they worked the liquor 

 they had bought."^ There were some pubHc grinding mills. The 

 decline of the Hereford cider business about 1800 was ascribed to the 

 adulteration of the liquor by the middlemen who thereby brought it 

 into discredit.^ 



(c) Hops. 



Hops were introduced into the English brewing industry during 

 the reign of Henry VIII. Beer-brewers, in contradistinction to ale- 

 brewers, arose during the reign of Elizabeth.^ Hop plantations were 

 started about Reading in 1552 and about Colchester in 1571. In 

 1607 it was said that "Suffolke, Essex, and Surrie, and other places 

 doe find to their profit" to raise hops on their "lowe and spungie 

 grounde."^ In these counties the cultivation of hops became a lead- 

 ing industry and continued so for two centuries. Chelmsford and 

 vicinity dispatched their hops to Stourbridge and marketed them there 

 at the great annual fair.^ Hedingham was the chief center of cul- 

 tivation. Worcestershire became a hop-producing region during 

 the seventeenth century. Worcester had one of the greatest hop- 

 markets.® It grew particularly during the eighteenth century.'' Bew- 

 dley had a weekly hop market.* At these markets the hops were 

 bought up by the brewers or their agents and carried, as packed by 

 the growers,^ to the brewdng districts and houses. As has been shown 



1 MarshaU, Rur. Ec. of Gloiic. II, 206, 364; V. C. H., Hereford, I, 427. 



2 Cooke, Cider and Perry, 9, 10. 



» V. C. H., Berks, I, 405; Essex, II, 366; Worces. II, 254. 



" Norden, Jno., The Surveyor's Dialogue, 206. 



^ Defoe, Tour, I, 125. 



« 2-3 Anne, Cap. 8; 3 Geo. II, Cap. 23; 4 Geo. II, Cap. 25. 



'Univ. Mag., June, 1763. 



« Postlethwayte, Diet. II, 846. 



' See description of package, V. C. H;, Essex, 366. 



