333 



THE HOP SUPPLY OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. 



The demand for hops in the United Kingdom is one that 

 has always been met for the most part by the home produc- 

 tion, and the proportion of our supplies received from abroad 

 has been maintained, on the whole, at a fairly constant level 

 for some thirty years past. As a rule, in normal years the 

 imports of hops form about a quarter or a third of the total 

 supply available for Consumption, although every now and 

 then years of unusual abundance or scarcity form exceptions. 

 But, speaking generally, both imports and exports have shown 

 but little tendency-to increase or decrease during the period 

 named, though there have often been considerable variations 

 as between one year and another. 



Particulars of the area, production, and trade of hops in the 

 United Kingdom, up to the year 1889, are given in the 

 Appendix to the Evidence before the Select Committee on 

 the Hop Industry in 1890.* The main purpose of the 

 appointment of that Committee was to inquire into the causes 

 which had produced the steady decrease in the acreage of land 

 under hop cultivation. The earliest records appearing in the 

 Agricultural Returnsf show that the area so utilised exceeded 

 64,000 acres in 1867; from which it increased fairly steadily 

 until a maximum of 71,789 acres was reached in 1878. 

 Though reduced to 65,000 acres in 1881, the area again rose 

 to over 71,000 acres in 1885, after which a further fall set in. 

 There were some 59,000 acres under hops in 1895, but in 



* H.C. — 302, 1890. See also, more especially as regards the estimated area and 

 productions prior to the official Agricultural Returns, the Report of the Beer 

 Materials Committee. [C. — 9172.] Appendix IV. 



t The records of the area prior to the abolition of the hop duty in 1862 indicate that 

 he area in the previous fifteen years varied between 42,000 and 5S,ooo acres. 

 {Report of the Beer Materials Committee, App. IV.) 



