Hop Cultivation. 
221 
The area upon which “Wealds” are grown lies between 
Edenbridge in the west and Ashford in the east, extending 
southward to Tunbridge Wells, Lamberhurst, and Hawkhurst, 
on the borders of Sussex. The soils are argillaceous clays and 
sandy clays, more or less tenacious and stiff, with occasional 
patches of loam and alluvium, upon the Weald Clay, the Tun- 
bridge Wells Sand, the Ashdown Sand, and the Wadhurst Clay; 
the three last being varieties of the Hastings Sand. Much of 
this hop land gives large crops in kindly seasons, far larger than 
those in other parts of Kent. 
Thei'e are two other small districts in Kent, one known as 
West Kent, running from Westerham to a little beyond Seven- 
oaks, and northerly to Orpington and the surrounding parishes. 
The best land is upon the curiously narrow strip of Gault of the 
Upper Greensand, alternating with a broader strip of various 
Lower Gi’eensand soils cropping up between the Chalk and Weald 
Clay. The Gault here is not anywhere wider than five miles, 
and the Sandgate Beds and Atherfield Clay running parallel 
with it are not more than seven or eight miles in width. The 
other district, whose hops are styled North Kents, embraces an 
expanse of Chalk hills with hop grouuds at distant intervals, 
between Farningham and Rochester. It is only in places where 
the marl on the Chalk is least tenacious that hops are grown. 
In some spots, as at Cobham, Southfleet, Gravesend, there are 
outcrops of Thanet Sand where clay loams suit hops well. 
Sussex has always ranked next to Kent in respect of its hop 
acreage, which has ranged between 7,000 and 11,000 acres 
during the last thirty years. The acreage has increased con- 
siderably since the beginning of the century, but the list of 
parishes, as in Kent, in which hops are cultivated, remains almost 
the same now, being determined by geological conditions. 
Though without doubt the farmers of Sussex imitated their close 
neighbours in the Weald of Kent, and, having the same kind of 
land and equal opportunities of getting plenty of wood for 
drying 1 and for poles, planted hops extensively, they did not 
extend their culture across the boundary of the Upper Cretaceous 
formation. They confined their hop land to the soils of the 
Lower Cretaceous formation — the Tunbridge Wells Sand, the 
Wadhurst Clay, and the Weald Clay — and to the rich alluvium 
of river courses in the eastern part of the county, where heavy 
yields are produced in good seasons. And to this day the 
same boundary is observed. 
1 In the early days of this cultivation hops were dried with wood. The 
old “ cockles,” or stoves, were made for this. 
