298 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



was equal to an annual charge of nearly £'] an acre.^ This 

 encouraged hop-growing more than the taking off of the import 

 duty in the same year discouraged it. In i88a there was a 

 very small crop in England, which raised the average price to 

 ;^i8 loj-. a cwt. ; some choice samples fetching £'>p a cwt. ; 

 growers who had good crops realizing much more than the 

 freehold value of the hop yards. This, however, was most 

 unfortunate for them, as it led to a great increase in the use 

 of hop substitutes, such as quassia, chiretta, Colombo, gentian, 

 &c., which, with the decreasing consumption of beer and the 

 demand for lighter beer, has done more than foreign competi- 

 tion to lower the price and thereby cause so large an area to 

 be grubbed up as unprofitable, that in 1907 it was reduced 

 to 44,938 acres. Yet the quality of the hops has in the last 

 generation greatly improved in condition, quality, and appear- 

 ance. Growers also have in the same period often incurred 

 great expense in substituting various methods of wire-work 

 for poles ; and washing, generally with quassia chips and soft 

 soap and water, has become wellnigh universal, so that the 

 expense of growing the crop has increased, while the price 

 has been falling.^ The crop has always been an expensive 

 one to grow; Marshall in 1798 put it at £%o an acre, ex- 

 clusive of picking, drying, and marketing ; ^ and Young 

 estimated the total cost at the same date at £y. \os. an 

 acre ; * to-day ^40 an acre is by no means an outside price. 

 It may be some encouragement to growers to remember that 

 hops have always been subject to great fluctuations in price ; 

 between 1692 and 1700, for instance, they varied from 405-. to 

 240J. a cwt., so that they may yet see them at a remunerative 

 figure. ' Upon the whole ', says an eighteenth-century writer, 

 ' though many have acquired large estates by hops, their 

 real advantage is perhaps questionable. By engrossing the 



* R.A.S.E. Journal, 1890, p. 324. ' See infra, p. '^z^. 

 ' Rural Economy 0/ Southern Counties, i. 285-6. 



* Victoria County History : Hereford, Agriculture. 



