Management of IIopx. 
567 
they are ripe there will be a deficiency both of weight and qua- 
lity, and if they hang too long they will get brown and part blown 
away by winds; it is the middle picking when the best quality is 
obtained ; and although the colour may not be so even and green 
as the first pickings, they show a richness the others do not. The 
time for picking will vary as the summer may be backward or for- 
ward : somewhere from the beginning to the middle of September, 
or from the 6th to the 15th, is the most usual time ; I have known 
it commence in August and sometimes late in September; I allude 
to a general commencement, not to here or there a particular 
gi'ound, or to a planter who has an ambition (if I may so 
use the expression) to have the first pocket of hops in the Borough 
market. It appears almost unnecessary, as the mode of picking 
hops is so well known, to go into any minute detail upon it, but, 
as there are some arrangements relating to it better than others, 
I will endeavour to state them. Hops are either picked in large 
baskets, or in bins, the latter being the most general one, the 
bin-frames being sufficiently large to take a cloth for two persons, 
or a family of a woman and two or three children, to pick in ; a 
man to pull poles to every four or five of these bins, to what is 
called a bin's company, consisting of eight or ten full-grown 
pickers, or of such a number of children as may be equal thereto ; 
the pole-puller, or bin-man, as he is called, in addition to his 
labour of pulling poles, to hold up the bag or poke for the man 
who measures to put the green hops in, to carry them to the 
waggon or cart that takes them away to the oast, and to strip the 
bine off the poles after the hops are picked off from all he 
pulls, for the sooner the bine is taken off the poles the better, since 
when lying in lumps in wet weather they are more liable to be 
injured, as the bines hold the wet. The bin-man, with his pickers, 
is placed to a certain number of hills, which is called a set, re- 
mains with them there until it is all picked, and then they move 
all together to another set; 100 hills generally are put to a set, 
which afterwards form a stack of poles. These arrangements, 
although perhaps of minor importance, tend to prevent confusion 
and promote regularity among the pickers, particularly when there 
are a great many. Hops are picked by the bushel, and are mea- 
sured in a basket holding about 10 gallons imperial measure ; the 
basket should be lightly filled level with the rim ; the price given 
per bushel varies with the crop, from 3 or 4 bushels for a shilling 
up to 9 or 10 in good crops ; they should be picked free from 
leaves, with the exception of a few small ones, and not in bunches. 
Hops are much cleaner picked than they used to be forty years 
back ; at that time one penny per bushel was a common price for 
a good crop. At Farnham they are picked in a superior manner 
to any other district, being picked quite separate, free from leaves. 
