-i59 



INVESTIGATIONS UPON THE GROWTH OF 

 HOPS, 1895-1901. 



The hop crop forms one of the most important branches of 

 the agriculture of Kent and Surrey, although of late years the 

 acreage has been shrinking. There were, in 1900, 31,514 acres 

 under hops in Kent and 1,300 in Surrey, and when one con- 

 siders the expenditure upon, and the value of, the crop, the 

 importance of the industry is still more manifest. In the 

 most highly farmed gardens of East and Mid-Kent the 

 expenditure reaches, and in many seasons exceeds, ^50 

 per acre, before the grower finally receives his annual return, 

 some two-thirds of this amount being paid away for labour. 

 Even on the poorest grounds in the Weald the annual out- 

 lay cannot be set at less than £25 per acre. It is difficult to 

 put down any average figure for the value of the crop, because 

 the gross yield is subject to fluctuations which cannot be 

 paralleled among ordinary field crops, and the price varies 

 from year to year even more widely than the crop. Modern 

 improvements in meeting- the attacks of disease prevent that 

 wholesale destruction of the crop which used to occur within 

 the experience of living growers ; but even the past four 

 seasons have seen a rise and fall of cent, per cent, in the 

 yield and the monetary return: of yield from 10 cwt. to 20 

 cwt. per acre, and back again, the price fluctuating inversely 

 between £8 and £2 per cwt. 



At present, on the best lands, hops are without doubt the 

 most highly farmed and most skilfully-managed crop in the 

 World. Whether we regard the care and labour expended in 

 training, the thoroughness of the manuring and cultivation, 

 the systematic manner in which the two recurring attacks of 

 insects and fungoid disease are met, no other agricultural 

 industry shows quite the same development of technical 



