Cultivation and Management of Hops. 
337 
amount of the dutj. It is very interesting, giving besides a 
forci))le illustration of the uncertain nature of the plant, to trace 
the changes and chances of the crop from June to September, 
as clearly evidenced by the fluctuations in the betting " sets " or 
estimates. For example, in the year 1840 the duty was esti- 
mated in June at from 140,000/. to 160,000/ ; on the 14th of July 
at from 90,000/. to 100,000/ ; on the 24th of the same month at 
40,000/. ; and it paid only about 34,000/. in duty. Again, 
in the year 1834 the duty was set in July at from 80,000/. to 
90,000/., and it paid over 180,000/. Blights and other causes 
of failure in the hop crop were not looked upon as unmiti- 
gated calamities while the duties upon foreign hops were in 
force. The high prices obtained for the few hops grown fre- 
quently proved more remunerative than low prices for a larger 
crop ; and a stimulus was imparted to the trade for a year or 
two after a partial failure. This natural result of a practical 
monopoly probably tended to make growers of hops somewhat 
apathetic and careless about improvements in cultivation and 
management, and in devising: means to make the chances of a 
crop more certain. Until the last ten or fifteen years quality 
was not much considered ; colour was not thought an essen- 
tial;* nor was the sort of hop much regarded by the brewers. 
The mighty thirst for pale ale has changed all this, and hop- 
growers find that colour and quality are indispensable ; that if 
they cannot produce hops to meet these requirements, there 
are innumerable foreign producers who are vigorously com- 
peting with them under more favourable conditions. The Bava- 
rian, French, and Belgian hop-growers have the advantages of 
climate, of a plantation in the full vigour of youth, of com- 
paratively low rents and taxes, with cheap labour. The American 
growers, whose acreage is immense, whose improvement in culti- 
vation and management has been very great, have thousands of 
square miles of virgin soil in which hops will do well for years 
without manure, a more equable summer temperature, and a 
proverbial commercial energy. The New Zealanders, in the 
garden of the world, are making efforts to be represented in the 
"Borough" — absit omen! and the Tasmanians boast that their 
somewhat despised country will some day be the great hop- 
growing centre of the universe. The rents of hop-land in 
England have been put up generally, local taxation has nearly 
doubled, and home competition is greater ; for the repeal of the 
home duty had the effect of increasing the home hop acreage 
* Mr. Boys, in his " General View of the Agriculture of the County of Kent," 
in 1805, remarks, that " those late picked hops, though of a had colour^ are often 
very strong, and the most experienced planters are of opinion that it is better to 
be too late than too early in the picking." 
