CROPS. 



289 



The plantations, when it can be safely done, are cultivated 

 by a horse hoe, or plough, and every effort is made to keep the 

 plantation free from weeds. The plant is subject to blight, and 

 destruction from aphides, and a good crop is judged to be ob 

 tained scarcely oftener than one year in five. An acre contains 

 about one thousand hills, and the yield may be put down at from 

 five hundred to one thousand pounds per a.cre. In a series of 

 ten years, from 1835 to 1844, the return of one plantation, as 

 given in Mr. Buckland s valuable Report on the Agriculture of 

 Kent, is as subjoined : 



Cwt. qr. Ibs. 



1840, ... 2 15 per acre. 



1841,... 9 3 18 



1842, ... 10 19 



1843, ... 10 3 00 



1844,... 30 9 &quot; &quot; 



The price of hops fluctuates between very wide ranges. The 

 expense of cultivation in Surrey was stated to me, exclusive of 



nidgets or harrows all through the summer, and generally farms upon four good 

 maxims, which perhaps may be more easily remembered by the reader, if thrown 

 into a distich. 



Cut early ; pick late, 

 Well mend, and cultivate. 



This new plan of poling was exhibited in about seven acres of splendid goldings, 

 at the back of Mr. Knowles s residence. The weather sides of this piece had 

 been poled four hills deep, with handsome, straight, twenty-one feet, large poles, 

 in rows. These were lashed to similar poles placed horizontally across them, 

 about eight feet high, from end to end of the hills ; and the rows of hills were 

 similarly bound to each other by poles placed from the outside rows to the inside 

 ones. By this means a phalanx of poles offers a sufficient resistance to the wind 

 to shelter the whole ground. Mr. Knowles was led to devise this plan as a 

 means of shelter. In one year, he calculates that he lost a bag an acre of his 

 goldings, from the effects of the wind a loss amounting to about one hundred 

 and forty pounds. This arrangement has been found a complete protection. 

 Another result has been obtained from it, which was scarcely anticipated, vi, 

 a very great improvement in the quantity of hops grown on the outside poles. In 

 many cases, these poles are covered with from thirteen feet to fourteen feet of 

 hops from the top, besides the cross poles being clustered most heavily, thus 

 clearly showing the great advantage of keeping the plants and poles firmly fixed, 

 instead of allowing them to swing about. The increased expense of poling a 

 ground throughout, in this way, is estimated at about thirty shillings per acre, 

 besides an extra man required in pulling. The saving in windy seasons would, 

 doubtless, be very considerable.&quot; Maidstone Gazette. 

 VOL. II. 25 



