ipio.] 



Hop Cultivation. 



889 



the ground is left more even than by the latter, but the cost 

 is somewhat greater. One advantage of digging lies in the 

 fact that it is a means of keeping the men on the farm all 

 through the winter, and so the hop-grower ensures a supply 

 of labour for the summer work in the hop gardens which 

 he may otherwise find it difficult to obtain. 



The objects of the winter cultivation are firstly to break 

 up the soil, which has been trodden down hard by the 

 pickers, and leave it well exposed to the air and to the frost 

 in winter; secondly, to bury and so kill any weeds, &c, that 

 may have started to grow; and thirdly, to bury the dung or 

 shoddy which has been carted on, so that the decay of the 

 organic matter may commence. 



Upon some of the very wet and heavy soils, especially in 

 the Weald of Kent and Sussex, no late autumn or winter 

 cultivation is done, but a deep furrow is made with a baulk 

 plough down the centre of each alley, and the soil displaced 

 by the plough is raked up along each row of hills. This 

 baulk ploughing is done either just before or just after 

 hopping. 



The object of this operation is to enable the water to drain 

 quickly away from the hop garden so that the hop hills may 

 be comparatively dry through the winter. 



In March, when the ground begins to dry, it is ploughed 

 back into the centre of the alley from either side. 



Spring and Summer Cultivation. — Cultivation with special 

 cultivators is begun in April as soon as the ground is dry 

 enough to allow it, and is continued at frequent intervals 

 throughout the summer. During the early part of the year 

 the cultivation is taken to a depth of from four to six inches, 

 and in some cases when the cultivation is done by a steam 

 implement the ground is broken to a depth of seven or eight 

 inches; as the summer advances the majority of growers do 

 not set the tines so deeply in the soil and are content to move 

 only about two or three inches of soil ; some growers, however, 

 believe in cultivating deeply when the hops are in burr. 



The object of the summer cultivation is in the first place 

 to aerate the soil and so help on those processes that render 

 the manures available as plant food ; of secondary importance 

 are the killing of the weeds and the levelling of the ground 



