Fifty Years of Hop Farming. 
331 
Artificial manures to stimulate the plants are chopped in 
with the above described hoe in July, and sometimes even in 
August, if there are signs of flagging energy. 
Poling. 
Not so many poles are set to a plant-centre in these later 
times. It was the general custom to put three poles to Golding 
hop plants, and frequently four to Grapes and Jones. Now two 
good poles are often only put to Goldings, and very often one 
row of plants is poled with two poles, and the next with three 
poles, and so on. It is most exceptional to see hop plants now 
poled with four poles. The foliage gets massed on the top of 
the poles, and air and light caunot permeate. To prevent the 
accumulation of bine, the poles are pitched so that their tips may 
stand as far apart as possible. 
Ash, chestnut, larch, fir, maple, willow, oak, red birch, alder, 
and beech poles, are chiefly used. An enormous saving in the 
cost of poling has been made by the practice of creosoting the 
ends of the poles that go into the ground. This has now 
been adopted generally since about 1860, and it is reckoned to 
have lessened the whole cost connected with poling hops by 
nearly 40 per cent. Poles are so cheap now on account of the 
diminution of the hop acreage, aud the effect of creosoting, that 
planters in some few instances are reverting to the practice of 
putting up uncreosoted poles. 
Creosoting has decreased the value of woodland considerably 
in Kent and Sussex. In these counties the "plantations" of 
ash and chestnut, made especially for furnishing hop-poles, 
coming to cut once in from eight to fifteen years, were worth 
from 25L to 60/. per acre, at each " fall." Now they give only 
from 10Z. to 25?. per acre at each fall, and even less. Ordinary 
woodland planted up for cutting for hop-poles has become de- 
preciated at least 50 per cent, within the last ten years. 
Besides the creosoting and the lessened demand for poles on 
account of the reduced hop acreage, several methods of training 
hop plants upon wires, and string made from cocoanut fibre, 
fastened to permanent uprights, have been introduced since 
1860 and adopted somewhat extensively. The great advantage 
of these methods is that the wind has comparatively little effect 
upon the hop plants, while it very frequently causes indescrib- 
able injury to those trained in the ordinary way upon poles, 
especially in the latter part of August, when gales are chronic 
and the hops most liable to be damaged. 
Cocoanut fibre string is also very largely used to carry bines 
