OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES. 423 
HOPS. 
The culture of Virgil's vines correspond very exacily with the 
modern management of hops. I might instance in the perpetual 
diggings and hoeings, in the tying to the stakes and poles, in 
pruning the superfluous shoots, &c., but lately I have observed a 
new circumstance, which was a neighbouring farmer’s harrowing 
between the rows of hops with a small triangular harrow, drawn by 
one horse, and guided by two handles. This occurrence brought 
to my mind the following passage : 
£¢? 
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Flectere luctan‘tes inter vineta juvencos.’’—GEorG. 
Hops are dicecious plants: hence perhaps it might be proper, 
though not practised, to leave purposely some male plants in every 
garden, that their farina might impregnate the blossoms. The 
female plants without their male attendants are not in their natural 
state: hence we may suppose the frequent failure of crop so 
incident to hop-grounds ; no other growth, cultivated by man, has 
such frequent and general failures as hops. 
Two hop gardens much injured by a hailstorm, June 5, show 
now (September 2) a prodigious crop, and larger and fairer hops 
than any in the parish. The owners seem now to be convinced 
that the hail, by beating off the tops of the binds, has increased 
the side-shoots, and improved the crop. Query. Therefore should 
not the tops of hops be pinched off when the binds are very gross, 
and strong P—WHITE. 
SEED LYING DORMANT. 
The naked part of the Hanger is now covered with thistles of 
various kinds. The seeds of these thistles may have lain probably 
under the thick shade of the beeches for many years, but could not 
vegetate till the sun and air were admitted. When old beechetrees 
are cleared away, the naked ground in a year or two becomes 
covered with strawberry plants, the seeds of which must have lain 
in the ground for an age at least. One of the slidders or trenches 
down the middle ef the Hanger, close covered over with lofty 
beeches near a century old, is still. called “strawberry slidder,” 
though no strawberries have grown there in the memory of man. 
