62 



JOUEKAL OF HOETICULTUES AND COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



[ January 25, 1871. 



lallel. We accompany this with a drawing of a Bection from 

 the Golden Champion cutting, esaetly of the size sent to 

 ns.— Ebs.j 



HOP CULTIVATION FOR ORNAMENT AND USE. 



No. 1. 



It is not without considerable diffidence that I address ray- 

 self to a subject which to a certain extent may be thought a 

 departure from the line laid down of treating in these pages 

 only on matters of a purely horticultural nature ; I likewise 

 feel diffident in meddling with a subject of which the most 

 experienced cultivators often admit they know but little ; but 

 I am emboldened by the fact that if the Hop plant and its 

 culture were better known amongst gardeners it might be in- 

 troduced more frequently in places where its beauties entitle it 

 to a place. In stating this, I believe I am not using stronger 

 language than will be borne out by all, or at all events nearly 

 all, of those who have seen a plantation of Hops in good con- 

 dition in August, and I call upon them to say whether they 

 have ever met with anything in the whole vegetable world 

 that exceeded it in grace and beauty. As there seems to be no 

 reason why the beauties of the Hop should be confined to the 

 districts where it is cultivated, it would be well if those having 

 the means would try a plant or two on some suitable spot, and 

 by careful attention to the plant, its beauties would in favourable 

 years well reward the grower for his labour ; whilst the interest 

 wish which it ia regarded where it is not cultivated as a pro- 

 fitable crop also enhances its importance. 



Although the cultivation of the Hop on a large scale is limited 

 to a few favoured places, there is no doubt but the number of 

 these might be multiplied, and suitable and sheltered sites 

 in most gardens or grounds might be tried with a stool or 

 two of this plant. I remember many years ago visiting a gar- 

 den in North Cheshire where there were specimens of Hops in 

 excellent condition, the gardener, I believe, being a Sussex 

 man. I have also seen very fair specimens of Hops growing in 

 a thicket in a situation far from favourable in Northumberland, 

 and I also remember once noticing a Hop hill in the garden 

 surrounding Stirling Castle, but the produce there, as might be 

 expected, was small, the great elevation and want of shelter 

 being felt by other things as well as the Hop, though I have 

 seen fair examples of Hops against the front of a public house 

 in Torkshire. The Hop, however, as an object of beauty and 

 interest is far from being so widely scattered as it deserves to 

 be, and I think it might often be employed as a summer 

 climber to cover aibours and similar places, and wiih as good 

 results as other plants used for the purpose, whilst in favour- 

 able seasons it would possess an interest which none of the 

 nsnal plants would have. 



The Hop is often met with in Kent in a wild state, but it is 

 not generally regarded as a native plant, for it is supposed to 

 have been introduced from the Netherlands about three hundred 

 years ago. The mode by which our forefathers preserved their 

 beer previous to that time seems not to have been transmitted 

 to us ; perhaps it was a secret they did not wish to be too widely 

 known, like that of making beer from the wild Heath, which 

 tradition says the Plots had the means of doing, but the secret 

 died with them. Be this as it may, there is no difference of 

 opinion at the present day as to Hops being an essential com- 

 ponent in the manufacture of beer, and whatever else has been 

 used as a substitute for them has always been regarded by 

 John Ball as an adulteration. 



It is, I believe, generally admitted that about one-half of 

 the Hops grown in the United Kingdom aro produced in Kent, 

 and that Kent and Sussex together produce fully three-fourths 

 of the entire crop. Of those grown in Kent, the bulk comes 

 from the centre and the southern edge gf the county, the 

 western, northern, and coast district producing but few. In 

 the districts where Hops are cultivated the diversities of soil 

 are, perhaps, as great as where any other crop is attempted to 

 be grown, the soils varying from the stiff clayey loam of the 

 Weald to the dry chalky downs of East Kent. Plantations of 

 Hops are likewise to be met with on the dry stony soil over- 

 lying the limestone, or what is here called Kentish rag, as well 

 as on some peaty marshes by the side of the Medway, where 

 it is necessary to maintain cpsn ditches -1 feet deep, and only 

 15 feet apart, oii over the ground, the height above water mark 

 Eot admitting of any other kind of drainage. Extraordinary 

 crops are reported to bo sometimes obtained from land of this 

 description, but the quality is inferior, the variety grown not 

 having the best name at market ; in fact it may be said that 



the Hops of the best quality are invariably produced on dry 

 land abounding in lime or some of its combinations. Some 

 dry valleys between the chalky downs to the south of Canter- 

 bury produce excellent samples, although not better than are 

 often met with from the ragstone slopes facing the Medway. 

 The greater part of the course of that river from Tunbridge to 

 Maidstone is through a district rich in Hop gardens, some 

 parishes presenting as great an area under Hops and fruit to- 

 gether as under all other agricultural crops ; and aa the ground 

 devoted to the former two is all cultivated by hand, it need 

 hardly be said that a farm or holding of fifty acres gives em- 

 ployment to a greater number of hands than are often met with 

 elsewhere on a farm of many times that extent. The gather- 

 ing-in of the crop alone gives employment to a greater number 

 of persons than any agricultural crop that I am aware of. 

 Some growers during the past season expended from £15 to £20 

 per acre in securing their crop. The anxiety with which the 

 crop is watched may therefore be readily conceived, especially 

 when the reader is told how exceedingly precarious it is — so 

 much so, in fact, that it is not unusual for the grower to do the 

 best he can and not realise a single shilling, and that may even 

 be several times repeated ; on the other hand there have been 

 now and then instances where a crop of Hops has realised 

 more than would have bought the land twice over, valuable as 

 it often is. 



So capricious is the Hop plant that, aa mentioned at the 

 beginning of this article, it is not unusual to meet with 

 old cultivators, men who have made the plant their study 

 through life, admit themselves puzzled and fairly beaten when 

 their eiJorts to avert failure are of no avail ; and on the other 

 hand occasionally a recovery will take place in plants that 

 seemed in a hopeless state of disease, and a fair average crop 

 vill be produced. These peculiarities in the Hop have no 

 parallel, so far as I am aware, among other crops, the energies 

 of the cultivator being almost as powerless to control the plant's 

 going downhill as they are to stop the Potato disease. At the 

 same time he seldom or never gives up in despair, the Hop- 

 grower, in fact, being one of the most ardent of all cultivators, 

 trying all manner cf experiments, and examining his crop 

 daily with a keener inspection than the plant-cultivator whose 

 pets are in preparation for some show, for he will tell you 

 to-day whether his prospects are better or worse than they 

 were yesterday. He does this, not in the way of merely jump- 

 ing at a conclusion, but as.the result of the close inspection of 

 a number of his plants, and he is generally right, though the 

 superficial observer may call his conclusions the result of 

 prejudice. 



It is the uncertainty of success that has limited Hop-culture 

 to certain localities, and it is doubtful whether science will ever 

 be able to battle with this uncertainty. Much has certainly 

 been done of late years in freeing the cultivation of the plant 

 from some vexatious restrictions put upon it by those who buy 

 the produce. Still Hops are a capricious crop ; and though tie 

 past season has been favourable, the preceding three years were 

 indifferent, although the skill and attention exercised were the 

 same in all. The united crop of the three years referred to 

 in many instances did not exceed that of 1870 alone, and there 

 are often enough greater differences than this. Besides, the 

 quantity of Hops really wanted is not very large, and as they 

 deteriorate very much by being kept over a year, the anxiety to 

 sell within a given period has, with other causes too compli- 

 cated to be mentioned here, placed the Hop market in a con- 

 dition more fettered and hampered by restrictions than that 

 of anything else I know. Even the removal of the excise 

 duty has not set the planter so free as ha ought to be, but time 

 will doubtless effect a reform in an abuse which legislative 

 enactments are powerless in. — John Eobson. 



POUBLE-FLOWERED PELARGONIUMS ASj 



BEDDERS. 

 Not having a sufficient number of one sort of the above 

 class of Pelargoniums to fill a bed last summer, our beds being 

 large, I did not attempt planting any of thorn out. I havo 

 heard poor accounts of their success out of doors, the common 

 complaint being their too vigorous habit, but there cannot be 

 two opinions as to their suitability as pot plants. They are 

 vigorous in pots, but not too much so when properly managed. 

 I grew a large number last summer for the decoration of our 

 conservatory, and those who saw them can testify they were 

 good. They were— Andrew Henderson, one of the best of the 



