METHOD OF CULTIVATING THE HOP. 127 



Each chaffy capsule, or leaf calyx, contains one seed. 

 Before these are picked, the stalks are detached, arid the 

 poles pulled up, and placed horizontally on frames of wood, 

 two or three poles at a time. The Hops are then picked off 

 by women and children. After being carefully separated 

 from the leaves and stalks, they are dropped into a large 

 clolh hung all round within the frame on tenter hooks. 

 When the cloth is full, the Hops are emptied into a large 

 sack, which is carried home, and the Hops laid on a kiln to 

 be dried. This is always to be done as soon as possible 

 after they are picked, or they are apt to sustain considerable 

 damage, both in colour and flavour, if allowed to remain 

 long in the green state in which they are picked. In very 

 warm weather, and when they are picked in a moist state, 

 they will often heat in five or six hours ; for this reason, the 

 kilns are kept constantly at work, both night and day, from 

 the commencement to the conclusion of the Hop-picking 

 season. 



The operation of drying Hops is not materially different 

 from that of drying malt, and the kilns are of the same con- 

 struction. The Hops are spread on a hair cloth, from eight 

 to twelve inches deep, according as the season is dry or wet, 

 and the Hops ripe or immature, \\hen the ends of the Hop 

 stalks become quite shrivelled and dry, they are taken off 

 the kiln, and laid 011 a boarded floor till they become quite 

 cool, when they are put into bags. 



The bagging of Hops is thus performed : in the floor of 

 the room where Hops are laid to cool, there is a round hole 

 or trap, equal in size to the mouth of a Hop-bag. After 

 tying a handful of Hops in each of the lower corners of a 

 large bag, which serve after for handles, the mouth of the 

 bag is fixed securely to a strong hoop, which is made to rest 

 on the edges of the hole or trap; and the bag itself being 

 then dropped through the hole, the packers go into it, when 

 a person who attends for the purpose, puts in the Hops in 

 small quantities, in order to give the packer an opportunity 

 of packing and trampling them as hard as possible. When 

 the bag is filled, and the Hops trampled in so hard that it 

 will hold no more, it is drawn up, unloosed from the hoop, 



