576 
Management of Hops. 
planters ; It has but one advantage over the old method of trcatlinc:, 
which is that hops may be pressed warmer than they can be 
trod, without breaking or mudging them ; but they do not draw 
so well in the sample, or look so well, as those trod in good order 
with the feet ; there is neither a saving of time nor expense to set 
.•igainst the cost of the machine, and as the disadvantages are 
equal to the advantages, il is not likely to become very general. 
After the hops are packed and weighed by the Excise they 
may, after remaining 12 hours, be removed for sale, or where the 
planter chooses. It is unnecessary to state here what is so well 
known to every one at all connected with the management of 
liops, the regulations of the Excise as to giving notices for bag- 
ing, (Sec, as this forms no part either of cultivation or manage- 
ment, and of which should any young planter be unacquainted, he 
may soon get information. But there is one observation I should 
have stated when making the comparison as to the relative price 
of bags and pockets, that the cloth to pack them in costs about 
the same ; a pocket of hops requires 5 yards of cloth at 7d., and 
for making is 85. ; putting the baging at 18s. per cwt., which 
is about an average price, a bag which weighs J of a cwt. will be 
As. 6(/., which containing the same weight of hops (as before 
shown) as there is in a pocket and a half, makes the price for 
the cloth for the same weight exactly equal ; and although it may 
vary a little sometimes either one way or the other, there is no 
difference to calculate on or interfere with the statement I have 
before made on that subject. 
Before I close this Essay I must return again to the hop- 
ground to state a process which has not yet been under our con- 
sideration, which is. Stacking the Poles. The sooner the poles 
are got from the ground the better, as they receive much more 
injury lying on the ground from wet than when stacked up, and 
particularly where they have not been stripped by the pole- 
pullers; and if the planter has labourers to spare, it should be 
done as close after the pickers as it can be done. The general 
practice is to put them in conical stacks, the sharped ends on the 
ground, the tips leaning against and supporting each other ; when 
the plant is square, they must be put up in 4 legs striding, one 
row with a hill right under the tips of the poles or centre of the 
stack ; the triangular plant should be set up with 6 legs, each 
ieg in one of the six spaces around the centre hill, that being 
])erpendicularly under the tip of the stack as in the square work. 
Here again is another advantage in triangular plant; 6 legs will 
stand firmer than 4, and as there are less poles in each leg, they 
will stand clearer from the hills, for it is necessary that every hill 
should stand clear from the poles, that they may be dug and cut. 
At the time of stacking the refuse poles should be thrown 
out and bound in bundles with bines, separating those which are 
