GOURD, HOP. 



103 



brown and to die, the root should be taken up and laid upon a 

 board in the hottest sun that is going, until they be perfectly dry : 

 then tied up in bunches by the leaves, and hung up and preserved 

 in a dry place. 



151. GOURD is a sort of pumpkin ; but I know not any use 

 that it is of. If any one w ish to cultivate it, out of mere curiosity, 

 the directions will be found under " Pumpkin." 



152. HOP. — The hop-top ; that is to say, the shoot w-hich 

 comes out in the spring and when it is about four or five inches 

 long, being tied up in little bunches, and boiled for about half an 

 hour, and eaten after the manner of asparagus, is as delightful 

 a vegetable as ever was put upon a table, not yielding, perhaps, 

 during about the three weeks that it is in season, to the asparagus 

 itself. What the hop is, in the hop plantations, every one in Eng- 

 land knows ; but the manner of propagating the plant is by no 

 means a matter of such notoriety. The hop may be propagated 

 from seed ; but it never is. The mode of propagation is by cut- 

 tings from the crown or the roots : pieces of these, about six 

 inches long, being planted in the ground w ith a setting-stick either 

 in spring or in autumn, shoot up and become plants. The hills or 

 clumps in the hop-plantations are generally formed by plants w hich 

 have stood a year or two in a nursery where the cuttings have 

 been planted. About four or five of these plants are put into a 

 clump, little sticks are put to them the first year to hold up their 

 slender vines, the next year rods, the next year small and short 

 poles, upon which they begin to bear, and the next year poles of 

 the full length sufficient to carry a crop. The vines which have 

 gone up during the summer, and borne the crop, are cut off to 

 within tW'O feet of the ground when the hops are gathered ; in the 

 spring of the year, the earth is drawn away all round from the 

 hill, and all the top part of the plants is cut off, leaving the crown 

 to look like a piece of cork ; from this crown, which is lightly 

 covered over w ith earth, fresh shoots come again in great numbers, 

 a part of the finest of these go up the poles, the weak ones are 

 suffered to hang about the ground for some time ; they are then 

 cut off close to the ground, and the earth is drawn over the crown 

 of the hill, forming a pretty large heap altogether before the sum- 

 mer be over. To have hop-tops in a garden, therefore, about a 

 dozen or twenty hills might be planted along, and pretty near to, 

 one of the hedges. The cultivation should be after the manner 



