82 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



not a sound, nothing but the rustle of a leaf falling from 

 the hollow oak by the gateway. But at midnight, just 

 as the drier is drawing the hops, a thunderstorm bursts, 

 and the blue lightning lights up the red cone without, 

 blue as the sulphur flames creeping over the charcoal 

 within. It is lonely work for him in the storm. By 

 day he has many little things to do between the greater 

 labours, to make the pockets (or sacks) by sewing the 

 sackcloth, or to mark the name of the farmer and the 

 date with stencil plates. For sewing up the mouth of 

 the pocket when filled there is a peculiar kind of string 

 used ; you may see it hanging up in any of the country 

 1 stores ; ' they are not shops, but stores of miscellaneous 

 articles. He must be careful not to fill his pockets too 

 full of hops, not to tread them too closely, else the sharp 

 folk in the market will suspect that unfair means have 

 been resorted to to increase the weight, and will cut the 

 pocket all to pieces to see if it contains a few bricks. 

 Nor must it be too light ; that will not do. 



In this district, far from the great historic hop-fields 

 of Kent, the hops are really grown in gardens, little 

 pieces often not more than half an acre or even less in 

 extent. Capricious as a woman, hops will only flourish 

 here and there ; they have the strongest likes and dis- 

 likes, and experience alone finds out what will suit them. 

 These gardens are always on a slope, if possible in the 

 angle of a field and under shelter of a copse, for the 

 wind is the terror, and a great gale breaks them to 

 pieces ; the bines are bruised, bunches torn off, and 

 poles laid prostrate. The gardens being so small, from 

 five to forty acres in a farm, of course but few pickers 

 are required, and the hop-picking becomes a ' close ' 

 business, entirely confined to home families, to the 

 cottagers working on the farm and their immediate 



