568 
Management of Hops. 
and the inferior and discoloured hops sorted out and put by them- 
selves, which in some degree accounts for the superiority and 
higher price of Farnham hops; but since the Mid and East Kent 
Golding hops have been better picked and dried, they have ap- 
proached nearer to the price of Farnhams, and there has been 
an instance of hops grown in Kent making more money than any 
Farnham hops did the same year. 
Drying. — In no department of hop management has there been 
a greater improvement of late years than in this ; and the great 
improvement that has within the last thirty years been made in 
the drying-kilns or oasts is the principal cause of it. Both growers 
and consumers are indebted to the late Mr. John Read, of Re- 
gent's Circus, for the invention of the circular kilns, which have 
at different times been improved, and are becoming every jear 
more general throughout Kent and Sussex, and are now brought 
to that perfection that double the quantity of hops are dried on the 
same space and in a superior manner. It is not altogether the 
form of the kiln, or oast, that constitutes the difference, although 
I believe the circular to be the best; but it is the distance of 
the hair from the fire, the great distance of the cowl or ventilator 
above the hair, the uprightness of the cone above, the length and 
circumference of the cowl, and the free circulation of air from 
below passing through the hops, driving the moisture from the 
hop up with it through the cowl, that constitutes the great im- 
provement. Formerly, on old kilns, half a bushel of hops on a 
superficial foot of hair was considered to be and was as much as 
could be dried at one time without injuring them or getting be- 
hind; for as the custom is to load the kilns twice in twenty-four 
hours, it is necessary that hops picked one day should be all dried 
and off the kilns by the middle of the next day, when the first load 
from the grounds will be brought in, which, when the kilns have 
a greater quantity of hops than they can dry, or as the term is over- 
loaded, cannot be always done ; it is therefore of very great conse- 
quence that the quantitv of hops should be suited to the capabilities 
of the kiln. In the old plan of building oasts, the distance of the 
hair above the fire seldom exceeded 7 feet, and sometimes not so 
much : air was not permitted to pass through the fire so freely, nor 
could it be allowed to do, for, from the nearness of the hair to the 
fire, and the roof of the building coming on above much nearer 
the hair than in the modern kilns, too great a circulation of air 
would have caused the fires to burn so fast as to injure the hops 
and drive the moisture off them faster than the roof and form of 
the building would admit of its getting away. It would, some of it, 
drop back on the hops, and discolour them ; it was these and other 
deficiencies in the structure of the building that would not per- 
mit of more hops being dried at a time than I have mentioned ; 
