384 THE HOP CROP. 



If the ground has been thoroughly well prepared for 

 planting, and got into good heart, either by feeding off a 

 root crop on the ground with cake, or by the direct appli- 

 cation of manure, it will not require any attention to this 

 point until the second or third year, after which a certain 

 amount of manurial substances should be applied every 

 year or every second year, equivalent at least to the 

 amount, abstracted from the soil, and carried off by the crop. 

 Lime is also a necessary ingredient in all hop soils, and 

 should be supplied freely at first, and afterwards at certain 

 intervals ; recollecting always that it is better that the 

 interval should be short and the dose smaller, than that 

 larger quantities should be given at greater intervening 

 periods that lime must never be applied in combination 

 with any ammoniacal manures as Peruvian guano for in- 

 stance and that lime is always used more beneficially with 

 farmyard dung than by itself in such soils. Therefore, 

 if in the preparation of the ground farmyard manure be 

 used, the lime may be advantageously applied at the same 

 period. Practice has long since pointed out the necessity 

 for nitrogenous manures to our hop grounds, and che- 

 mistry has more recently explained to us and confirmed 

 the good policy of this practice. Woollen rags, horn 

 shavings, shoddy, seal-skins, and various refuse substances 

 rich in nitrogen, were specially used for this cultivation. 1 

 Now, however, Peruvian guano is found to be a cheaper 



150 years old " noted for growing large crops of good quality, and still con- 

 tinuing to do so." At the recent meeting (1860) of tlie Royal Agricultural 

 Society, at Canterbury, among the samples of hops exhibited for competition 

 were some the' growth of a plantation one year old bedded sets yield 8^ 

 to 9 cwts. per acre; of a plantation three years old, yield 15^ cwts. per acre ; 

 and others of various ages up to eighty and ninety years old, the rate of 

 produce at that age appearing to be fully as large as at any of the intermediate 

 periods. The largest quantity grown to the acre of the samples exhibited was 

 23i cwts. 



1 Of woollen rags from 12 to 20 cwts. are given to the acre ; shoddy is 

 applied at the rate of 20 to 30 cwts. ; seal-skins at the rate of 150 bushels. These 

 are applied either in the winter or the spring, and covered in with the fork. 



