

PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part III. 



Subsf.lt. 1. The Hop. — Ilumulxu Liljtulta L. ; Dicta Penldndria L. t and UrticetB J. 



Jl, mlil, in, l'i. ; Hojtpen, Ger. ; Lupolo, Ital. ; and Lujmlo, S/hiu. (Jig. 803.) 



5997. W /«</< is a perennial-rooted plant, 

 with an annual twining stem, which, on poles or 

 in hedges, "ill reach the height of from twelve lo 

 twenty feet or more. It is a native of Britain, 

 and niosl parts of Europe, in hedges, flowering 

 in June, and ripening its seeds in September. 

 The female blossom is the part used : and as the 

 male and female flowers are on different plants, 

 the female only is cultivated. 



998. When tin- h«p was first used for preserving beer, 



or cultivated lor that purpose, is unknown; but its culture 

 was introduced to this country from Flanders in the reign 

 of Henry VIII. Walter Blitn, in bis English Improver 

 Improved, 1649, the third edition, 1653, p MO., has a chap, 

 ter upon improvement by plantations of hops, &c. He 

 observes, that " hops were then grown to be a national 

 commodity : but that it was not many years since the 

 famous city of London petitioned tiie parliament of Eng- 

 land against two anusancies; and these were Newcastle 

 coals, in regard to their stench, &c, and hops, in regard 

 they would spoyl the taste of drink, and endanger the 

 people; and had the parliament been no wiser than they, 

 we hail been in a measure pined, and in a great measure starved, which is just answerable to the prin- 

 ciples of those men w ho cry down all devices or ingenious discoveries as projects, and thereby stifle and 

 choke improvements." 



5999. The hop hat long been cultivated extensively in many parts of England, but not much in Scotland 

 or Ireland. According to Brown, hops are not advantageous in an agricultural point of view; because 

 much manure is abstracted by them, while little or none is returned. They are an uncertain article of 

 growth, often vielding large profits to the cultivator, and as often making an imperfect return, barely 

 sufficient to defray the expenses of labour. In fact, hops are exposed to more diseases than any other 

 plant « ith which we are acquainted ; and the trade affords a greater room for speculation, than any other 

 exercised within the British dominions. {Brown.) Parkinson in a paper on the culture of the hop in 

 Nottinghamshire, published in the Faioi. Mag. vol. xvi., observes that " the hop is said to be a plant very 

 properly named, as there is never any certainty in cultivating it." 



6*000. There are several varieties of the hop. The writer of The Synopsis of Husbandry 

 distinguishes them under the titles of the Flemish, the Canterbury, the Goldings, the 

 Farnham, &c, and says that the Flemish is held in the lowest estimation of any. 



6001. The Flemish hop, he says, is of a smaller size, of a much closer contexture, and of a darker green 

 Colour! than any of the rest, and grows on a red bind ; and has so near an affinity to the wild or hedge-hop, 

 that it'wotilii never answer for cultivation, did it not possess the property of resisting the blast with greater 

 vigour than the other kinds; so that, in years when these last are covered with flies and lice, the Flemish 

 hop appears strong and healthy. At picking time, likewise, this kind of hop, he says, takes less damage, 

 either by the sun or rain, than any other ; and upon these accounts, it may answer the views of the planter 

 to have a few acres of it, which will secure him a crop in a blasting season, when those of the more valuable 

 class are destroyed, so as to be worth nothing. 



600-2. The soils most favourable to the growth nf hops are clays and strong deep loams : 

 but it is also of great importance that the subsoil should be dry and friable ; a cold, wet, 

 tenaceous, clayey understratum being found extremely injurious to the roots of the 

 plants, as, when they penetrate below the good soil, they soon become unproductive, and 

 ultimately decay. 



fiOOS. A chalky soil. Bannister says, is, of all others, the most inimical to the growth of this vegetable ; 

 the reason of which he takes to be 'the dry and parching quality of the chalk, by which the roots are pre- 

 vented from absorbing a qu uititv of moisture, equal to the supply to the vine or bind with sap during its 

 growth ; for though a dripping summer is by no means kindly to the welfare of the hop, yet since the vine 

 in a healthy slate is very luxuriant, and furnished with a large abundance of branches, leaves, fruit, &C., 

 it follows thai the demand of moisture from the soil must be proportionally great to preserve the plant in 

 health and vigour ; and for this reason the ground ought not to be deficient in natural humidity. Hence 

 we generally Hnd the most luxuriant vine growing on deep and rich land, as moulds, &c. ; and in these 

 grounds it is common, he says, to grow a load on an acre. But it is to be observed, however, that the 

 abundance of fruit is not always in proportion to the length of the vines; since those soils which, from their 

 fertility, cause a large growth ol vine are more frequently attacked by the blast, than land of a shallower 

 staple where the vine is weaker and les, luxuriant. 



6004 But though rich moulds generally produce a larger growth of hops tlmn other soils, there is one 

 < xception to this rule, where the growth is frequently eighteen or twenty hundred per acre. This is on 

 the rocks in the neighbourhood of Maidstone, in Kent, a kind of slaty ground, with an understratum of 

 stone. On these rorks there is a large extent of hop-garden, where the vines run up to the tops of the 

 longest poles, and the increase is equal to that on the most fertile soil of any kind. 



The most desirable situation for o hop plantation is ground sloping gently towards the south or 

 BOUth-west, and screened, by mean- of high grounds or forest trees, from the north and north-east. At 

 the same time it ought not to be so confined as to prevent that free circulation of air which is indispensably 



necessary where plants grow so close together, and to such a height A free circulation of air, in a hop- 

 ground, iiot only conduces to the health and vigour of the plants, but also prevents the crops from being 

 blighted, or what the hop farmers call lire blasted, which often happens towards the middle of a large 

 close planted hop. ground ; while t he out sides, in consequence of the more free circulation of air that there 

 take place, receive no injury whatever. 



lined. Bannister asserts, that those fields which lie within a few miles of the sea, or in the neighbourhood 

 of marshy or fenny levels, are seldom favourable to the growth of hops, as such grounds generally miscarry 

 ill a blasting vear ; and th.. ugh. from the fertility of the soil, they may perhaps bring a plentiful crop in 

 tho-e Beasons when the growth is general, such a situation is eligible for a hop ground. In Worcester- 

 shire and Herefordshire hops are very generally grown between the rows of fruit trees in dug or ploughed 

 orchards. 



