7SG = 470 The Cultivation of Hops. 
taxes, interest on capital, cultivation, amount to at least 22/. per 
acre, exclusive of the cost of packing, drying, and other inci- 
dental expenses, which varies according to the amount, of the 
crop grown, whose average may, however, be put at 13/. per 
acre per annum ; making the total annual average cost of hop- 
Rental of hop- land amount to 35/. per acre. Rents range from 21. to 10/. per 
acre, and 4/. is about the average rental of English hop-land. 
For land in East Kent, Mid Kent, and Farnham, the highest 
rentals are paid, and the lowest in Sussex. Profits are occasionally 
very large, amounting to 100/. per acre per annum upon land 
that is especially suited for hop-growing.* As has been shown, 
the risks are very great, and the expenses are enormous and are 
increasing year by year ; and it will be seen, from an examination 
of the figures given above, that the average profit upon each acre 
of hop-land in England, in the last 30 years, has not amounted 
to much over 10/. per acre per annum. This profit has not bv 
any means been equally distributed among the planters. In some 
instances very much more profit has been made ; in others very 
much less. In some districts the hop-plants are more liable to be 
blighted than in others, and in most districts there are " lucky " 
farms, upon which the aphis-blight, or mould, rarely affects the 
plants. A hedge or a stream frequently forms a line of demarca- 
tion between hop-land that is liable to blight and that which 
escapes blight. It seems probable that the profits of hop- 
growing will be diminished in this country in the future, by 
reason of the large importations from America, Belgium and 
Holland, France and Germany, and the ever-increasing expendi- 
ture in connection with their cultivation. 
CHAPTER II. 
Fruit. 
Fruit has been extensively grown in Great Britaih, at least ii 
England and Wales, for more than 300 years. Although sucl 
fruit as apples, cherries, and pears had been cultivated lont 
before the sixteenth century in many parts of the kingdom, .' 
great stimulus was given to fruit-growing by one Richan 
Harris, the gardener of King Henry VIII., who encouraged thi 
planting of rare kinds of fruit-trees and bushes, which he hac 
* A north-west or uorth-east aspect is generally held to be the l)e8t sihiafioi 
for hop-growing, as the sun does not in that case shine directly upon the plant 
wot with hoar-frost or dew. 
