56 SPECIALIST FARMING: HOPS AND FRUIT 



to be grubbed and burnt, and a valuable industry is 

 rendered precarious because of the initial lack of fore- 

 sight and energy based upon knowledge. 



On the " ragstone " the underfruit consists not unfre- 

 quently of filberts and cob-nuts, always a speciality 

 of Kent ; and they are grown on bushes trained into 

 the shape of a great basin six feet or more in diameter, 

 the young shoots, which are to fruit in the following 

 year, being pruned a joint or two above their starting- 

 point by breaking them across in the summer and 

 completely removing them in the winter. As much 

 as two tons of nuts to the acre are grown with proper 

 management in favourable seasons, and far greater 

 crops are sometimes obtained ; naturally the market is 

 a restricted one and prices very variable. Apples are 

 chiefly grown on the free stock all over Kent, only in 

 East Kent a few orchards of dwarf apples on the 

 Paradise stock are to be found growing without any 

 admixture on tillage land. But the great character- 

 istic of the Kentish soil and climate from the fruit- 

 growers' point of view is the comparatively restricted 

 growth it promotes ; trees at an early age naturally 

 form fruit-bearing spurs instead of the gross growth 

 of wood which prevails in the West. 



In the Maidstone district no large proportion of 

 the land is occupied by general mixed farming ; besides 

 the fruit and hops the most characteristic features in 

 the rich and varied landscape are the plantations of 

 sweet chestnut which used to be cut over at twelve to 

 fifteen year intervals to yield hop poles. Nowadays, 

 however, hop poles are in little demand ; a smaller 

 number of large poles are required to support the wire 

 superstructure of the hop plantations, and the chestnut 

 underwoods have lost the greater part of their value. 

 In East Kent, where the fruit and hops are grown on 



