HOP-GROWING 181 



inches, while on the 2;th it had put on another 

 four. The next day it made an additional six and 

 a half inches, while next day it was somewhat idle 

 and had increased but another four and a half 

 inches. The more or less propitious weather would 

 of course tell ; what our old gardener calls "growy 

 weather " is at once the cause of more rapid 

 developments. The succeeding daily movements 

 were 5, 3, 4J, 4J, 6, 7, 6. It had grown four feet 

 seven inches in the eleven days we were observ- 

 ing it. For a plant to grow a yard in eight days is 

 rather startling, and this vigour was not confined to 

 a single shoot by any means; dozens of others were 

 exhibiting a like energy. A plant that we have 

 trained against our house reached, last season, a 

 height of thirty-seven feet, and spread out laterally 

 twenty-six. 1 This, there or thereabouts, is what it 

 is prepared to do for us, without any trouble on our 

 part, year after year, closing its career each Autumn 

 with the arrival of the Harvest Festival, when its 

 long, trailing, fruit-laden stems are a very welcome 

 contribution to the adornment of our church. 



Beautiful as it is in its wild state, clambering over 

 the hedgerows, its dense masses of large leaves and 

 constricting stems are rather destructive to other 

 plants, and when the Autumn fall of the foliage 

 takes place we see clearly enough the mischief it 

 has done them. 



1 Good hop hath a pleasure to climbe and to spred." 

 TUSSER, 1580. 



