The Cultivation of Hops. 
12>2> = 467 
Castable of Kent shows that 99,670 immigrants were employed 
iipicking hops in Kent alone, in 1876. In Herefordshire and Immigrants 
V )rcestershire, many pickers come from the neighbouring large ■"'^j^g^^f*' 
ivns, and from Manchester, Wolverhampton, and the mining 
dtricts. A planter in Kent having 50 acres of hop-land 
n uires from 140 to 150 pickers, besides those living under 
h i. One who has 100 acres requires 300 " strangers," and 
SI on. In some instances, individual planters employ over 
1 )0 immigrants, who require as much marshalling and manage- 
nnt as a small army. The pickers are distributed in gangs 
0 ' companies " of ten. Each company is under a ganger or 
" inman," who pulls down the poles, helps to measure the hops 
pked, and takes them to the waggons. The various grounds 
o;"' gardens" are divided into small portions called "sets" at 
p king-time, and each company takes one of these sets. 
tp-picking is very popular with the denizens of smoky 
tc ns, as the aroma of hops is supposed to be conducive 
tc wealth, and good wages can be gained. From IJf/. to 2Jc?. Prices pa kl for 
p bushel, weighing about 7 lbs., is paid for picking hops. P'^king hops. 
G)d pickers will earn from Zs. 6J. to 45. 6fZ. per day. Hops 
ai picked into long wooden frames with sacking bottoms ; 
ai in some places, as in East Kent, into baskets. They 
ai taken in "pokes," or long bags of thin sacking, holding 
Kjushels, to the oast-houses, where they are dried in kilns, 
u]n horsehair-cloth stretched upon a flooring of stout laths, 
alut 13 feet from the ground. In the circular or square 
cl libers below this floor there are either open or enclosed 
St es, in which anthracite coal, coke, and charcoal are burned. 
V\en hops are drying it is usual to burn a little sulphur — the 
b( yellow sulphur in rolls being used for this — upon the fire, 
so that its fumes may pass through them when evaporation 
is t its highest point. The sulphurous acid evolved by the Sulj.hur use.] 
su'hur bleaches the leaves of the reeking hops, and imparts to bleach the 
tha a golden colour. About 10 lbs. of sulphur are burned for 
3C bushels of green hops. If hops are much discoloured, sul- 
plr fumes are passed through them twice while they are drying. 
His are dried in 11 or 12 hours, and are subjected to a heat of Drying pro- 
abit 130° Fahr. An oast-house is built generally with several 
ki's, either square or circular, in a group ; and upon the same 
leil as that of the drying-room — the " hair-level " — as shown in 
thi.ccompanying illustration of a kiln (Fig. 5); a cooling-room 
of litable size is attached. The hops are left in these rooms for 
a 5 art time, and are packed by a machine into pockets, or long 
ba of canvas of stout texture, holding from 1 J to 1^ cwts., or 
aut rities are now insisting that the accommodation for these immigrants shall 
:ent,*and proper in a sanitary point of view. 
