Cultivation and Management of Hops. 
359 
are used in the vineyards. The cost of each sulphuring ranges 
from lis. to 15s. per acre. One horse with a man and boy are 
required. The best, or sublimated, sulphur is usually preferred, 
but some growers who have watched and carefully compared the 
action of this with what is called sulphur vivum, or black sulphur, 
much prefer the latter. This, as M. Vialles terms it, Sovfre hrut, 
or the crude sulphur merely melted by heat, and the stones and 
foreign matters disengaged, allowed to cool and then broken up 
for sale, is more highly esteemed for vines than the refined or 
the sublimated sulphur. 
Harvesting. 
PicMufj. — The legitimate time to pick hops is when they are 
quite closed up at the tips, rustle or crackle on being touched, 
when the farina is of a rich golden colour, and the seeds perfect 
and firm. The longer, in reason, they are allowed to hang, the 
better they weigh and the more condition they gain if they are 
free from mould, aphides, and flea. * 
As the brewers will have bright hops, which they say are 
essential for pale ale, the growers' great aim is to secure their 
hops before they are tinged by the weather, or assume the 
naturally darker shade accompanying full ripeness. The loss of 
weight consequent upon this early picking is very great, much 
injury is inflicted upon the stock of the plant, and the genuine 
brewing qualities of the hop are decreased. As many as 
80 bushels of green hops are required for 1 cwt. of dried hops at 
the commencement of picking, and from 65 to 70 at the close ; 
while in the old times, when picking did not begin until the hops 
were quite ripe, the average number of bushels to the cwt. was 
about 65. Picking is now much expedited ; it rarely lasts longer 
than three weeks. The largest growers, who are well off for 
kiln-room, get their hops picked in fifteen or seventeen days. Five 
weeks used to be the usual time, and six weeks in years of 
heavy crops. At the latter end of these very protracted picking 
seasons many of the hops were " flyers," and when there were 
aphides present they got "black at the strig," or as brown as 
coffee-berries from sun and air. This did not matter much then. 
They were put into "bags" — traditionary receptacles of refuse 
and rubbish — made of very coarse fibrous hemp, holding 2^ cwts., 
and used for porter, whose dark colour covered a multitude of sins, 
and which no doubt formed a highly nourishing drink. If these 
* This iusect {Haltica concinna) is very injurious to the bine in the 'early 
spring, particularly in dry weather, and where the land is rough and badly culti- 
vated. In some seasons it follows the plant all through its stages into the very 
flower itself, making it light and comparatively -worthless. 
