82 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 
not a sound, nothing but the rustle of a leaf falling from 
the hollow oak by the gateway. But at midnight, just 
as the drier is drawing the hops, a thunderstorm bursts, 
and the blue lightning lights up the red cone without, 
blue as the sulphur flames creeping over the charcoal 
within. It is lonely work for him in the storm. By 
day he has many little things to do between the greater 
labours, to make the pockets (or sacks) by sewing the 
sackcloth, or to mark the name of the farmer and the 
date with stencil plates. For sewing up the mouth of 
the pocket when filled there is a peculiar kind of string 
used ; you may see it hanging up in any of the country 
‘stores ;’ they are not shops, but stores of miscellaneous 
articles. He must be careful not to fill his pockets too 
full of hops, not to tread them too closely, else the sharp 
folk in the market will suspect that unfair means have 
becn resorted to to increase the weight, and will cut the 
pocket all to pieces to see if it contains a few bricks, 
Nor must it be too light ; that will not do. 
In this district, far from the great historic hop-fields 
of Kent, the hops are really grown in gardens, little 
pieces often not more than half an acre or even less in 
extent. Capricious as a woman, hops will only flourish 
here and there; they have the strongest likes and dis- 
likes, and experience alone finds out what will suit them. 
These gardens are always on a slope, if possible in the 
angle of a field and under shelter of a copse, for the 
wind is the terror, and a great gale breaks them to 
pieces; the bines are bruised, bunches torn off, and 
poles laid prostrate. The gardens being so small, from 
five to forty acres in a farm, of course but few pickers 
are required, and the hop-picking becomes a ‘close’ 
business, entirely confined to home families, to the 
cottagers working on the farm and thcir immediate 
