Ch. XXX.] HOPS-POLING. 343 



year. A quantity of farm-yard dung, at the rate of 20 to 25 loads per acre, 

 according to quality, or double that amount if made into compost with 

 mould, having been brought on the land, the hills are then dressed in the 

 month of March, either with that manure alone, or with the dung mixed 

 with some of the soil. About the same quantity of similar manure, or any 

 mixen that can be easily procured, is also usually laid on every other, or, 

 at the farthest, every third year : it is carted out during the winter's frost, 

 and after it has been regularly spread upon the ground, it is dug during 

 that season with a " spud," or three-pronged fork, of about eighteen inches 

 long and nine or ten inches broad ; which tool mixes the soil more inti- 

 mately with the dung than the common spade. In every successive year 

 the process of becking the hills, and of pruning the crown of the plants, is 

 also gone through about the middle of March, in the manner already 

 described. 



Such is the usual mode of culture in the counties of Surrey, Kent, and 

 Sussex ; but, according to an account received from a very respectable 

 liop-planter in the vicinity of Worcester, we find that in Worcestershire 

 and Herefordshire hop-grounds are prepared by a double ploughing, 

 about 12 inches deep, early in the winter, and about the beginning of 

 March it is made as even as possible by scuffling, harrowing, and rolling : 

 an old piece of pasture land is in general selected. 



The rows for the hop sets are marked out by sticks 8 feet apart, and a 

 line with a feather, at intervals of 3 feet to 3 feet 4 inches, is then drawn 

 the whole length of the row, and a stick 1 yard long is stuck in the ground 

 at each feather — women with dibbles put in at each stick three sets, and 

 cover them with light mould about half an inch, after having pressed the 

 earth as close as possible lo them. About June the small bines are tied 

 to the sticks with rushes, and the soil is ploughed up to them : the weeds 

 are then cut off with a " kuf," which is a kind of spade fixed nearly hori- 

 zontally to the end of a handle or staff about 4 feet long. In the second 

 year the soil is ploughed down from the roots, and the shoots of last year 

 cut off and a little loose soil thrown upon the crown of the root ; in May 

 they are poled with two poles to each stock, about 9 feet long. In June 

 four or five of the bines are tied to them, and the soil is kuf'd or moved 

 about the roots and the weeds destroyed. In July about six inches of soil 

 is thrown up to the crown of the roots with the kuf, and then ploughed 

 up from the centre of the rows, and are afterwards harrowed, scuffled, 

 hoed, and spittled up, as the proprietor thinks necessary. The third year 

 they are poled with poles about 12 feet long, and are worked in a similar 

 manner; the average produce being about 2 cwt. per acre. 



An acre of hop ground in these counties contains 1000 stocks, with 2 

 poles to each, so that 4 acres of hops will occupy about 2f acres of land — 

 and is by no means a remunerating crop upon ordinary or poor soils. But 

 if a valuable meadow be broken up for the purpose, and the grower has land 

 to produce his poles, and will manure and work his land belter than this 

 is generally done, the produce may then remunerate its cultivation. 



POLING. 



When the vines have been cut and dressed, the hills are then poled with 

 stakes of sixteen or seventeen feet long, and it is an operation in which 

 great judgment is necessary, for if the plant be weak and they happen 

 to be over-poled, — that is, that poles of too great length are set — the roots 

 will in the following year become impoverished, and thereby sustain injury 



