February 16,1882. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 145 
j with the spade, except where it is desired to go deep and turn 
the bottom soil upon the top. Digging is always attended with 
considerable expense, but we look forward to a time when the 
digger driven by steam, and exhibited last July at the meeting of 
the Royal Agricultural Society at Derby, shall be so altered and 
improved as to be made available in digging land under culture 
for Hops. There have been more improbable alterations and 
improvements in farming machinery than we have named, the 
reaping and binding machine to wit. 
Dressing or cutting the plants in the hills must now be de¬ 
scribed. This is done by boys or women opening around the 
sides of the hill with a small narrow hoe or pecker a little below 
the crown of the hill. A man then follows with a pruning knife 
and a small hand-pecker, with which he clears out the earth 
between the sets on the crown of the hill, and the shoots of last 
year’s growth that were tied to the poles. These, from having 
earth put on them the preceding summer, swell out to four or five 
times their original size, and form what are termed sets or cut¬ 
tings. Cutting them off at the right part should be particularly 
attended to or great injury will be done ; it is therefore necessary 
that the person cutting them should ascertain exactly where the 
crown of the hill is. They should be cut between the crown of 
the hill and the first joint, for it is around the set close to the 
crown where the best and most fruitful bine proceeds. If the 
set is pared off too close to the stock or crown it takes away the 
part whence the bine comes, as small buds are seen ready to start 
at the time of cutting, and if these are removed the bines become 
weakly and few ; on the other hand, if the set is cut above the 
first joint the bines which come from that or any other joint 
higher up the set grow fast, but are coarse and hollow and also 
unproductive. 
The Hop plants will now have arrived at the time when poling 
should be done, and Mr. Whitehead in his essay published in the 
Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society in 1870 on the recent 
improvements in the cultivation and management of Hops, says : 
“ During the last few years many new plans for poling Hops have 
been devised, the primary notions of which came from America, 
where poles and labour are dear and inventive genius is particu¬ 
larly fertile. According to one of these plans, for which a patent 
was taken out in this country, one pole is put to each hill, and 
stout string or cocoa-nut fibre yarn is stretched horizontally at a 
distance of from 8 to 10 feet from the ground from pole to pole. 
The appearance is very picturesque, as may be imagined, but the 
system is not satisfactory, and has been discontinued by many 
planters who gave it a fair trial. I have tried it for three years 
upon three acres. I found that the expense of tying the bine to 
the horizontal strings was very great; the bine never took kindly 
to the string, so that the tyers were perpetually required through¬ 
out the summer, and that the produce was each year considerably 
less per acre than in another part of the ground poled in the usual 
manner, though in every other respect treated the same as the 
stringed piece. It is, however, right to state that Mr. Gunner of 
Alton, Hants, has had several acres trained in this way for some 
years, and is quite satisfied with the result. This gentleman writes 
as to the expense of tying—‘It is really nothing when you think 
of how much is saved in poles, how good the quality of the Hop 
is, how little liable to damage from wind, and how strong your 
plant will always be, for I believe if the string-training is properly 
carried out there will be no such thing as weak bine.’ ” 
Training on wires variously fixed is practised in America, in 
Germany, and in France. Iu many districts of these countries 
poles are dearer than in England. Mr. Farraar of Kyrewood, 
Tenbury, has patented a system of training Hops on wire, consist¬ 
ing of an arrangement of vertical wires communicating with hori¬ 
zontal wires. Large posts stouter than telegraph posts are fixed 
at the end of each row of Hops, to which wires are fastened at 
the top and bottom. These wires run horizontally from post to 
post, and at every hill vertical wires are fixed between these two 
parallel horizontal wires, to which the bines are tied. By an 
improvement, however, in Mr. Farmar's process the ironwork is so 
fixed that it may be easily taken down at picking time. Several 
planters in the Hereford, Worcester, and Farnham districts have 
adopted this method, and speak favourably of its advantages. 
'The first cost of it is put at £4G per acre, and it is calculated that 
it will last for twenty years in an efficient state, while the usual 
method of poling is estimated af £37 10.s. as first cost, indepen¬ 
dently of the necessary yearly renewals of the poles. The main 
objects of the piteutee have been economy of cost and labour and 
to obviate the necessity of cutting the bine. The latter has at all 
events been achieved, and time will prove whether the former has 
been attained.” 
■ It is well known that the nature of this plant is to climb 
spirally towards the light, making its revolutions with the course 
of the sun ; therefore the vigour of the whole plant will be 
diminished by these constrained efforts when tied and twisted 
round the horizontal wires or strings. We also believe that in 
the case of vertical wires the bine would require constant tyincr, 
as its refLxed bends would not find a firm hold upon the smooth 
surface of wires, and that shoit turns would be general and cause 
want of vigour in the bine, and prove fatal to the chances of a 
full crop. Mr. Coley of Maidstone invented a plan in 18G8 on 
somewhat peculiar principles, which has been already largely 
adopted, and has many advantages over the ordinary vertical 
wood poles. Accord ng to his plan two stout, thoroughly creosoted 
poles, 1G feet or IT feet reduced to about 12 feet long, are firmly 
pitched to each bill east and west. These have two pieces of 
stout iron wire fastened to their tips to form a fork to receive a 
diagonally inclined pole of from 12 to 14 feet long, which rests in 
a staple fixed in the upright pole of the opposite hill, a stout piece 
of wood being nailed to the upright at each hill to keep them 
firm. These uprights are fixtures. The diagonal poles are, how¬ 
ever, lifted out at picking, which greatly facilitates this work. 
(To be continued.) 
WORK ON THE HOME FARM. 
TTorse Labour .—From the few first days in this month nearly all 
kinds of horse labour has been possible, and much of it has since 
been executed in a satisfactory manner, especially the pressing and 
drilling of Beans, Peas, "Vetches, either separately or together. These 
mixed crops of Beans and Peas or Yetches have lately come into 
repute during the past year or two, but particularly when put in with 
the presser and drill combined, of which we find an excellent arrange¬ 
ment and apparatus made and manufactured in a southern county 
by Messrs. Tasker A Co. It is adapted for Wheat on light soils, as 
the presser has always been used to great advantage on the hill 
farms, but it has seldom been accompanied with an apparatus for 
sowing various kinds of seeds at the same time by one operation. 
They have for some time had their attention called to it. and have 
succeeded in bringing out a very excellent implement, for which they 
•were awarded the first prize at the Royal Show at Plymouth in 1865, 
and again at Bedford in 1874. The drilling apparatus is attached to 
the back part of the frame of the land-presser and adapted for 
depositing the seeds of any kind in grooves made by the presser, 
whether of two or three rings or more. They are not only manu¬ 
factured for the work, but the apparatus can be attached by them 
in a few days to any presser now in use, being fitted with conducting 
coulters, &c., to the wheels, and when turning on the headlands can 
be lifted in or out of work with a lever by the driver or conductor. 
Hand Labour .—The attendance of the drowner in the water meadows 
will be required more than usual on this occasion to regulate the 
application of the water, for the supply has been very short up to 
this time, and the growth of grass very irregular in consequence. 
Although the weather has been very favourable for early grass on 
the upland and park pastures, yet the irrigated meadows are cold and 
low, and will not often produce grass in due season unless the usual 
supply of flood water can be properly distributed. Potato-planting 
will now employ men, women, and boys, some to plant, some to fetch 
and carry the tubers or cut sets, and others to sow and distribute the 
guano in the furrows with the sets, and to prevent this from flying 
before the wind we always use damp ashes in admixture. If dung is 
laid out the men will be required to spread it, and the women to rake 
it into every third or fourth furrow upon the sets. Early sorts of 
Potatoes should be planted at 27 inches apart between the rows, but 
the late sorts not less than 3 feet, in order to give room for them 
to spread both roots and haulm to obtain a full crop of even-sized 
tubers. 
Live Stock .—We cannot recollect a season since 1840 when the 
epidemic lampness first broke out in the sheep, when they have been 
so free from disease and foot rot as during the past winter and pre¬ 
sent season. The various flocks of Down ewes have also brought 
more twin lambs than usual, and are generally very healthy. The 
lambs from the Horned Dorset and Somerset ewes are fast being sold 
in London and other large towns at a good price, and this will con¬ 
tinue as mutton is so high in price, and because no country can com¬ 
pete with our early lambs, and the lambs being of such capital quality 
in consequence of the favourable season will be sure to keep up the 
market price. Veal is sur-e to sell well, as the demand for milk is 
so much increasing that fewer farmers will fatten calves ; but for those 
farms which are from five to seven miles from a town or railway 
station nothing pays like veal, especially if we get Down or Here¬ 
ford calves, for these are always of the best quality, far superior to 
Shorthorns, these being too coarse and bony for first rate veal. Some 
farmers are making it a practice to supply calves from the south 
and western counties of the best sorts as sucklers, and deliver them 
at any station within reasonable distance. The plan we adopt when 
the calves fi st. arrive on the farm is to suckle three or four to 
one cow. and give them, besides cake and meal, balls made up with 
milk. This insures the health of the calves, and when the fat ones 
are sold we have always some in hand to take their place, two 
to a cow first, then one, but always with meal from hand or trough. 
They form a good mixture of flesh and fat and keep in full condi¬ 
tion up to the time when they will realise £5 each, for we never sell 
