HOPS. 
125 
over the plantations occasionally, to replace any vines 
that may stray, and repair any damage the plants or 
poles may have received from the weather. When 
they have reached their full growth, which is, in some 
measure, regulated by the number and length of the 
poles, the side shoots put out. The method of top* 
ping the vines, to promote the lateral shoots, said to 
be practised in other plantations, is never used in this. 
ic About the second week in September they ripen, 
when the hop-pulling begins. In a plentiful year, 
it continues six weeks, more or less, according to the 
crop. The cribs are now placed, beginning on that 
part which lies most exposed to the sun, as being 
soonest ripe ; one, two, or more, as the proprietor’s 
plantation is large or small, and he has the convenience 
of kilns to dry them. Each crib has eight or ten 
pickers, women and children; they pick, if there is a 
tolerable crop, and they are any ways industrious, from 
six to eight bushels each per diem, which is about a 
sackful (the sack in which they are carried green to the 
kiln); eight of these sacks, when dried, make about one 
hundred weight; but in some seasons* though no ways 
negligent, they will fall short of one half of this quan¬ 
tity. The pickers come from the neighbouring coun¬ 
ties ; but the far greatest number out of Wales; some 
from thirty to forty miles distant. From the cribs, the 
hops are conveyed to the kilns, four or five of the 
sacks alluded to before, at a time, on a horse, and are 
dried as soon as possible; they damage considerably, 
if suffered to lie long together before they are put on 
the kilns. They will heat in six or eight hours, and 
lose colour; to avoid which, the kilns are kept con¬ 
stantly employed day and night. The time the hops 
?&ke in drying, is from eight to twelve hours, accord¬ 
ing 
