60 QUALITY AND KEEPING OF HOPS. STATISTICS OP 



The scarcity or abundance of the hop crop entirely depends 

 upon the ordinary prevalence or unusual plenty of these 

 pernicious insects. Vain would be the attempt to clear a hop 

 plantation of them, or to rescue any extensive crop from their 

 baneful ravages. Even violent rain has but a partial effect 

 in destroying them. 



Production in England. The growth of hops in Great 

 Britain is almost entirely confined to England, and there 

 chiefly to special localities. The cultivation of this valuable 

 plant does not vary very considerably now from year to year, 

 although affected to some extent by fluctuations of price. 

 Nearly 70,000 acres were returned as planted with hops 

 in England in 1875, the largest acreage ever reached. 

 Hop planting rather declines than otherwise, however, in 

 counties where it is practised upon only a small scale ; but 

 the following shows the present acreage and that of seven 

 years previous in the principal districts where it is carried on : 



About two- thirds of the acreage under hops, it will be seen, 

 is in the county of Kent. The other counties in which hops 



