471 
RETURN OF MATERIAL TO THE ROOT OF 
THE HOP. 
In the old-fashioned way of growing hops, the bine or 
vine, which renews itself from the permanent root every 
year, is trained uv one or more wooden poles from 1o to 
15 feet high, and when the hops are ready for picking 
the bine is cut near the ground level, the pole is pulled up 
and laid so that the pickers can conveniently pick off the 
hops into their bins or baskets. Of late years the poles 
have largely been replaced by strings of coir yarn, which are 
attached to permanent wires running across the hop garden 
and supported by stout posts. When the hops are 
ready for picking the string is cut at the top and falls 
down with the bine twined round it, so that the hops 
can be readily picked without any cutting of the bine. 
But though these systems of growing hops upon string 
and wire are gaining ground every vear, a considerable 
proportion of the total acreage of hops is still grown 
upon poles, in which case the bine must be cut before the 
pole can be pulled up. At the time the hops are picked 
the plant as a whole is far from ripe, the bine and the leaves 
are green and active, sometimes the sap is still flowing 
Soireely that the cut surfaces “bleed ccnsiderabiy. On 
general theoretical grounds it might be expected that this 
cutting of the bines before the plant is ripe must result in a 
considerable joss to the permanent root ; not only would the 
leaves assimilate and manufacture carbohydrates from 
the air, but probably some of the valuable material in the 
bine and the leaf would be withdrawn as the plant ripened, 
and be stored in the root to assist the development 
of the plant in the following year. Although this has never 
