Hop Cultivation. 227 
Fuggle’s Golding, and are not as a rule so disposed to blight and 
mould as others. 
The Jones is a very useful hop, yielding well on some 
soils. It has large cones, and when grown on good land has 
much quality. 
There are very early and common varieties as Prolifics, 
Meophams, and others, which yield large crops of inferior 
quality, and are not much in favour with brewers when other 
kinds are available at reasonable rates. 
The “Mathon,” which originated in Matlion, a parish in 
Worcestershire, and is peculiar to that county and Hereford- 
shire, approaches nearly in flavour to the East Kent Golding. 
In Sussex and the Weald of Kent, the “ Colegate ” is grown, 
but not nearly so extensively as twenty-five years ago, and many 
planters are eliminating it altogether and planting Fuggle’s, 
Hobbs’s, Henham’s, and Buss’s Golding. It comes to pick latest 
of all hops. It is accurately described by Mr. Rutley as 
A variety first propagated from a plant growing wild in a hedge on a farm 
at Chevening in Kent, by a gentleman of the name of Colegate. It is a very 
hardy hut backward hop, and will grow on any soil ; it runs much to bine, 
and requires as long poles as Goldings. The hop is generally very small, 
when quite ripe before it is picked ; they have a rich, thick appearance 
when dried, but the smell and flavour are not good, and some brewers object 
to them. 1 
Hops of a Golding type are cultivated on the best soils in 
Hampshire and Surrey, and Grapes, as the ordinary Grape, and 
Williams’s Whitebine Grape, and the Grape Green Bine, Hen- 
ham’s and Fuggle’s have been planted on the poorer soil. There 
has been a disposition of late, in Herefordshire and Worcester- 
shire, to plant hops of Golding character, and to improve the 
quality generally of the growths of these counties, which find 
much and increasing favour among brewers. At the same time 
early varieties, as Meophams and Prolifics, have been put in to 
some extent, and Fuggle’s, which are coming into favour. 
As a rule, hops are now planted six feet apart each way, or 
1,210 hills, or stocks, per acre. It is found that this number of 
hills is quite sufficient, and that as many hops can be grown on 
this plant as upon a closer plant, especially if cocoa-nut fibre 
string is fixed on the tops of the poles. In Herefordshire and 
Worcestershire the number of hills is smaller, varying from 889 
to 1,000 hills; but the planters have latterly set them more 
closely together. 
Old pastures and old apple and cherry orchards are well 
1 On the Best Mode of Managing Mops. By Mr. Butley. Journal of the 
Royal Agricultural Society of England, 1840. 
