350 Cultivation and Management of HojjS. 
as may be seen from a comparison of an old witli a new nidget^ 
(figs. 4 and 5). 
Fig. i.—Tlie old Wooden Nidgelt. 
Fig. 5. — The new Iron Nidgeit. 
Very late deep nidgetting is much discontinued, as well as 
late digging. In blighting years these operations are occasion- 
ally resorted to to let the draught into the ground, thereby to 
check the flow of sap and starve the aphides and green lice. If 
proper weather follows, the results of these processes have been 
traditionally known to prove successful ; but experience has 
shown that the chances are quite against a favourable issue, and 
that if the besiegers are starved away by these derniers rcssorts, the 
fortress itself will be so much reduced as to be practically useless. 
The ancient Chinese mode of obtaining roast pig, according to 
Charles Lamb, is almost as defensible as these roundabout 
practices. Earthing, or putting a few shovelsful of earth on 
each hill to keep it from wet, and to get strong sets for bedding, 
is done about the end of June; but the operation is not per- 
formed so usually, nor so much as a matter of regular routine 
as it used to be ; hop plants that have not been earthed 
always come stronger and more forward than those that 
have been earthed, and if it were not for the necessity of saving 
sets, and the untidy appearance caused by the bines running 
all over the ground, it is questionable whether earthing would 
