CLIMATE AND SOIL FOR HOPS. 65 



Thanet, Woolwich and Oldhaven beds, which crop up 

 here and overlie the chalk on the backbone of Kent. 

 As the chalk appears again with a thin and gradually 

 decreasing surface of loam, the hop land becomes less 

 valuable, and at a short distance from this point hops 

 are not cultivated at all until the bastard East Kent 

 district begins, where the hops produced are of inferior 

 quality as compared with East Kent hops proper, being 

 grown upon useful, somewhat heavy soils, lying for 

 the most part upon the belt of gault alternating with 

 the Folkestone beds intervening between the chalk and 

 the weald clay. Below Canterbury there is a district 

 between Challock and Barham where hops of first-class 

 quality are grown, upon loams of a lighter character 

 resting on the chalk. The crops here are not so heavy 

 as those yielded on the deep loam and brick earth in 

 the Faversham district of East Kent, and the plants 

 will not take such long poles, but the quality is most 

 excellent. The "weald of Kent" is so named because 

 of its soils resting largely on the geological formation 

 called weald clay; they are clayey loams, sandy clays, 

 more or less tenacious and stiff (these latter require 

 expensive drainage), with occasional patches of loam 

 and alluvium. 



So, too, in Germany, the hop is more grown on 

 clayey soils, well drained, than the average American 

 planter would think possible. In Saatz and other 

 famous Bohemian districts the soil is a reddish clay 

 containing considerable iron, elevated about 800 ft 

 above sea level and protected from cold north winds. 



LOCATION OF A HOP YARD 



Let it be naturally protected against prevailing 

 wind storms, especially from the north and west. A 

 heavy wind will badly whip the vines. (See "lewing," 

 in Chapter X.) Very often this point is quite neg- 



5 



