362 APPENDIX C. 



July, 36,000 ozs. of water in twelve hours. This is the quantity 

 of water which during this time is exhaled by them, and which 

 they must have to be in a thriving condition. 



* In a kindly state of the air, this moisture is daily carried 

 off in sufficient quantity to keep the hops in a healthy state; 

 but in a rainy moist state of air, without a due mixture of dry 

 weather, too much moisture hovers about the hops, so as to 

 hinder, in a great measure, the kindly perspiration of the leaves, 

 whereby the stagnating sap corrupts, and breeds mould. 



' This was the case in the year 1723, when ten or fourteen 

 days almost continual rains fell, about the latter half of July, 

 after four months' dry weather ; upon which the most flourishing 

 and promising hops were all infested with mould in their leaves 

 and fruit, while the then poor and unpromising hops escaped, 

 and produced plenty ; because they being small, did not perspire 

 so great a quantity as the others ; nor did they confine the per- 

 spired vapour so much as the large thriving vines did in their 

 shady thickets. 



* This rain on the then warm earth made the grass shoot out 

 as fast as if it were in a hot-bed ; and the apples grew so pre- 

 cipitately, that they were of a very fleshy constitution, so as to 

 rot more remarkably than had ever been remembered. 



' The planters observe that when mould has once seized any 

 part of the ground, it soon runs over the whole, and that the 

 grass and other herbs under the hops are infected with it ; pro- 

 bably because the small seeds of this quick growing mould, 

 which soon come to maturity, are blown over the whole ground ; 

 which spreading of the seed may be the reason why some 

 grounds are infected with fen for several years successively. 



' I have,' says Hales, 'in July (the season for fire-blasts, as the 

 planters call them), seen the vines in the middle of a hop 

 ground all scorched up, almost from one end of a large ground 

 to the other, when a hot gleam of sunshine has come immedi- 

 ately after a shower of rain ; at which time the vapours are often 

 seen with the naked eye, but especially with reflecting telescopes, 

 to ascend so plentifully as to make a clear and distinct object 

 become immediately very dim and t]-emulous. Nor was there 

 any dry gravelly bed in the ground, along the course of this 

 scorch. It was, therefore, probably owing to the much greater 



