160 HOPS. 



for the same reason, they will be more compact and better 

 provided with lupulin. 



Although this question has no immediate connection 

 with the operation of cutting, it is referred to in the present 

 place because, later on, stress will be laid on the necessity of, 

 as far as possible, preventing any immoderate checking of 

 the sap, whether at cutting time or afterwards ; such 

 checking being so intimately connected with the desired 

 rational degree of concentration for the nutrient fluid, and so 

 greatly affecting the activity of the roots, particularly in 

 gardens that are still in the first few years of growth. The 

 evil is less to be dreaded in older stocks because, develop- 

 ment being completed, they have always a sufficient number 

 of dormant eyes to form a certain reserve of consumers 

 sufficient for any eventuality. 



In the description already given of the various typical 

 methods of cutting reference has been made to certain 

 minimum and maximum numbers of eyes. Experience 

 teaches, however, that the number of shoots put forth 

 Only very rarely coincides with the quantity of eyes left 

 behind, and that usually they exceed the latter, though the 

 conditions are occasionally reversed. Here on the one 

 hand it is a question of the vital activity of the plant 

 attempting to counteract any arbitrary treatment, and on 

 the other of the opposing action of inimical forms of life. 

 This notwithstanding, some standard is required in practice 

 for guidance in the course to be adopted, though no implica- 

 tion is made that a single eye less or a couple more than the 

 indicated number constitutes any great error. It is evident 

 that, in coiinting the number of eyes round the periphery 

 of a stem, one or another may be easily overlooked. On 

 the other hand, young shoots that have already appeared 

 above the ground are liable to destruction by insects or 

 man, and therefore mathematical accuracy is not to be 



