54 SPECIALIST FARMING: HOPS AND FRUIT 



year and seven pounds the next, hop-growing becomes 

 a speculative industry, and is discouraged by many 

 landlords on the plea that the tenant starves the rest 

 of his farm for the sake of his hops. But forms of 

 agriculture that demand capital and skill of a high 

 order, that draw a great cash return off a small 

 acreage, should above all others be preserved in 

 England ; moreover, from the landlord's point of view 

 no other crop can afford to pay such a high rental. 

 Good hop land in Kent is still worth three pounds an 

 acre when it would otherwise stand at twenty shillings 

 or thereabouts. As a business, hop-growing is safe 

 enough over a term of years for the man who 

 recognizes its fluctuations and maintains a reserve. 

 The disasters happen when the man who has been 

 successful with twenty acres during a good year 

 extends to forty acres and is left with no surplus to 

 meet such a succession of losses as happened in 

 19068. But most of the wealth of Kent and East 

 Sussex has been made over hop-growing ; and it main- 

 tains the most numerous and best -paid body of 

 labourers in the countryside, for most of the operations 

 are let out by the piece and the women have their 

 share in the work. We were told of families taking 

 home three pounds a week during the summer ; and, 

 as a hundred acres of hops will easily carry twenty 

 men all the year round, there is no form of agriculture 

 more effective in maintaining the rural population. 

 At that time we were led to think that the industry 

 was short of that measure of scientific assistance it 

 might expect, and that it was lacking both in leaders 

 and in courage. 



From time immemorial the Kentish hop-grower has 

 also been busy with fruit ; both crops were probably 

 " fetched out of Flanders " in early Tudor times along 



