348 BRITISH HUSBANDRY. [Ch.XXX. 



the Sussex and Kentish growers, with a view to improve the bright yellow 

 colour which is so much admired in the sample *; and by some saltpetre is 

 mixed with the brimstone, but its use requires great care. The Farnham 

 planters, however, never make use of sulphur for the hops of superior quality, 

 though they sometimes employ it to bleach those w hich have become brown, 

 either by being overgrown, or by having received injury from the weather ; 

 for thev find that the best way of securing the delicacy of that pale hue 

 upon which ihey plume themselves, as being peculiarly requisite in brewing 

 light-coloured ales, is by picking the hop early, and drying it very gently. 

 AVhether attributable to that, or to the absence of the brimstone, which is 

 thought by many to injure the strength of the hop, it is a certain fact, that 

 those grown in the district around Farnham are of better quality than those 

 grown in any part of Kent or Sussex. They do not however maintain 

 their properties longer than one or two years ; whilst the best golding hops 

 that have been ripe when picked, high dried with sulphur, and packed in 

 good tow bagging, have been known to keep good during twelve years. 



When sufliciently dry, the hops are shovelled to the upper floor of an 

 adjoining store, called the " stowage-room," in which they are bagged. 

 About twelve baskets of the gauldens will in general go to the cwt. ; but 

 some growers have introduced the wild, or what they term the " Canterbury 

 grapes," which take fifteen or sixteen baskets to the cwt. 



The bagging for market does not take place until some days after the 

 hops have been carried to the store-room, as from the extreme state of 

 brittleness in which they are when taken from the kiln, they would be 

 broken if immediately handled, and the sample would be thus materially 

 injured. They are therefore laid in heaps upon the floor, in order to give 

 them that degree of toughness and tenacity which they acquire by a 

 moderate degree of sweating. They are then put either into bags or 

 pockets. The first picking, being generally of the brightest colour, are 

 usually put into the pockets ; and the late pickings, from being brown, are 

 packed in bags of about seven and a-half feet in length, and eight in 

 circumference, which are universally of 2^ cwt., while the weight of the 

 pockets is only li to H cwt. : that of the bagging itself is 2I> lbs., whereas 

 the cloth of the Canterbury pocketing is so niucli finer, as to be only 5 or 



6 lbs., which alone will often account for the diflerence of price in favour of 

 the pocket. The mode of bagging is as follows : — 



A circular hole, covered by a trap-door, and sufficiently large to admit 

 the mouth of a hop-bag, is made in the floor of the stowage-room. A few 

 hops are tied tight in the lower corners of the bag, in order that, when full, 

 they may be lifted and removed with ease. A hoop, rather larger than the 

 circumference of the hole, is used to stretch out the bag, by means of 

 hooks on the outer side of it, the inner side of the hoop, when the bag is 

 let down into the hole, either resting on the floor, or on a frame of wood 

 made over it. When the bag is thus stretched out, and let into the 

 opening, the "feeder" throws down a few shovelfuls; and the " bagster," 

 descending into the bag, with flat shoes, or leather socks, on his feet, treads 



* This, although a general and undisguised practice, is however illegal; as by Stat. 



7 Geo. II. c. 19. confirmed by 35 Geo. III., it is declared, "that if any ])erson shall mix 

 with hops any drug or ingredient, to alter the scent or colour, he shall forfeit 5/. per 

 cwt. ;" and a conviction upon ^yhich was obtained in a prosecution (Rex v. Pack) 

 against a person who used sulphur in the process of drying hops ; Lord Kenyon being 

 clearly of opinion that it is an offence within the meaning of the Act. 



