Ch. XXX.] HOPS— PICKING, OASTAGE, AND BAGGING. 345 



bark tends to preserve the pole from the worm, it deprives it of a certain 

 degree of softness and warmth which are thought useful to the plant*. 

 The timber used for poles in the midland counties is chiefly oak, the greater 

 part of which is grown in the weald of Kent; but every kind of wood 

 that is sufficiently straight and slender, is employed for the same purpose : 

 maple, ash, and chestnut, being the best, and beech and birch the worst. 



The operation of tying the bine to the poles usually takes place in the 

 month of May ; or, more properly speaking, both the setting and tying are 

 commonly going on in different parts of the same plantation. The best of 

 the vines are selected, three being generally trained to each pole, and 

 there is perhaps no part of the business which requires to be so accurately 

 timed, for if it be delayed until the bine spreads along the ground, it is 

 difficult to change their creeping direction without injuring them : at the 

 same time it is advisable that they should be sufficiently long to be attached 

 to the pole without slanting them too much from the root. Both the wild 

 and the cultivated hop follow the course of the sun in their windings, and 

 when they are fastened to the pole, this inclination of theirs is therefore 

 complied with ; it has indeed been observed, that attempts to make the 

 wild hop climb in a contrary direction have been found uniformly unsuc- 

 cessful t- The binding is done by women, who tie the bines loosely with wa- 

 tered rushes about a foot above the ground, at the rate of about lis. per acre. 



The further operations, after tliat of poling, consist in cutting oft" the 

 bines that were rejected at the time of binding. This is not done until 

 about midsummer, as it is thought better to allow them by creeping over 

 the ground to keep it moist, while the trained vines are too young to effect 

 that purpose; the branching also usually takes place about the same 

 time ; though some planters, as we have already observed, defer it until the 

 blossom is fairly set. After this the ground is becked a second time, and 

 half-hilled, to draw up a little mould into the crown of the hill with the 

 hoe-side of the beck ; and a few weeks afterwards the same process is again 

 repeated. In the routine of the Farnham planters, who spare neither 

 labour nor expense, the ground is also " peared," or hoed just before the 

 picking of the hops, in order to destroy any weeds that mav have come up 

 since the last becking ; and in case the moistness of the season, or the rich- 

 ness of the ground, should bring forward any weeds between the first and 

 second becking, the ground is also hoed or peared at those times +. 



PICKING, OASTAGE, AND BAGGING, 



are the operations which close the culture of the hop, which begins " to 

 bell," or show the seed-vessel, some time in August ; and if the weather 

 prove favourable, it will be ripe by the end of the month, or the beginning 

 of September. When the seed begins to change from a pale straw-colour 



* The maple has been particularized by Mr Marshall as btunij; peculiarly soft and 

 warm ; addintj, that an intelligent planter in the vicinity of Maidstone remarked to 

 him, " that he had frequently observed, when the morning has been cold, the sensitive 

 leader of a tender fresh-poled vine, reclining its head against the velvet bark of the 

 maple, while others held theirs aloof from the chilly smooth-barked poles." — Southern 

 Counties, vol. i. p. '211. 



f It has been already noticed, that it is sometimes necessary to substitute a taller 

 pole for one that is not sufficiently long; or to interchange the poles of the over-poled 

 or tnuler-poled vines. "This necessarily requires a careful and steady hand to draw 

 out the vine, and lay it gently and regularly on the ground till the proper pole is 

 brought to it: still greater nicety is required in observing all the curves of the vine 

 while it is wound round the pole."' — Stevenson's Survey ot Surrey, p. 350. 



I Stevenson's Survey of Surrey, pp. 'Syd, 355. 



