Hop picking

“ The hop-picking follows, and at this women sometimes get 4s. and even 5s. per day. This is the real Kent harvest, which formerly lasted a month or five weeks. Now it rarely extends beyond eighteen days, as it is important to secure the hops before the weather and the aphides, which almost invariably swarm within the bracts of the cones, discolour them and spoil their sale, as brewers insist upon having bright, “coloury” hops. Picking is better done than was formerly the case. ”

“ On the final day of the picking they expect to be allowed to indulge in a good deal of horse-play, the great joke being suddenly to upset an unpopular individual into a crib among the hops. Shrieks of laughter greet the disappearance of the unlucky one, of whom nothing is to be seen except a struggling leg protruding from the crib.
The last operation in the hop garden is stacking the poles, and burning the bine, a most inflammable material which makes a prodigious blaze. As the men watch the leaping flames the same remark is made year after year—"fire is a good servant, but a bad master." ”

“ The hop-picking and bagging is over here. The crop, as in the other hop-countries, has been very great, and the quality as good as ever was known. The average price appears to be about 75s. the hundred weight. The reader (if he do not belong to a hop-country) should be told, that hop-planters, and even all their neighbours, are, as hop-ward, mad, though the most sane and reasonable people as to all other matters. They are ten times more jealous upon this score than men ever are of their wives ”

“ When the fly is very bad, the common practice is, after the picking is over, to clear the land of bine and weeds and to place quicklime round the hills or plant centres.
When the hop is fully formed, shortly before picking, if the weather be hot and close, almost the whole crop may be destroyed in a few days. The aphides penetrate the hop and suck from the tender bracts the juice, some of which exudes ”

“ A hop is quite foreign to the lark's disposition, yet, when courting, "the male bird advances upon the female with wings drooped, crest and tail raised, and with a series of impressive hops." The hop of the wood-pigeon, under similar circumstances, is of a heavy and deliberate nature, as might be expected his build and size, and has the same set and formal from character as the bow which immediately follows it. ”

“ Harrod manages well, you should tell him so; you are his friend."
The squire was silent, moodily silent.
"Ah, who can tell what is good management in hops?" sighed he at last. "The most gambling thing that a man can touch. All [213] chance. Twelve hours' storm, a few scalding hot days, and a few night-mists at the wrong moment, may ruin the most brilliant hopes of weeks. I have seen fortunes lost over hops. A field that will bring forth hundreds one year will scarcely pay for the picking the next. No man ought to touch hops who has not plenty of money at his back." ”

“ None of us knew anything about the hop business, and it was totally accidental that we engaged in it, but seeing that there were possibilities of great gain, I took extra pains to study up the question, and found that by allowing our hops to mature thoroughly and curing them at a low temperature, and baling them while hot, we could produce a hop that would compete with any product in the world. ”

“ On debouching from the road over which the tall poles with the slender stems of the hops twining and clambering, though leafless and faded, formed an archway through the thick and dense hop gardens that bordered each side of the way, the advanced guard uttered a shout of surprise and defiance, and halted till the main body came up. ”

“ Hoppers are those which strike the ground in front of goal from a curved throw or grounder, and hop or rise suddenly. All grounders are liable to this on uneven ground. The home men should examine the ground near goal, and if they see a furrow or ridge parallel or opposite, make use of it by throwing swift grounders which will strike them. The theory of hoppers is, that if started as grounders the goal-keeper prepares to receive them as such; and when they rise, they hop so suddenly that he may not bring up his crosse sufficiently quick to stop them. ”

“ Boys often contend for superiority of skill in this game, and he who passes the rope about most times without interruption is the conqueror. In the hop season a hop-stem, stripped of its leaves, is used instead of a rope, and, in my opinion, it is preferable.” On Good Friday on Brighton beach the fisher folk used to play at skipping, six to ten grown-up people skipping at one rope. ”

“ How to Attach Hobbles
With most horses it is sufficient to strap a pair of these around the forelegs and above the fetlocks. A gentle animal can be trusted with them fastened below.
But many horses by dint of practice or plain native cussedness can hop along with hobbles nearly as fast as they could foot-free, [166] and a lot too fast for you to catch them single handed. Such an animal is an unmitigated bother. Of course if there is good staking you can picket him out; but quite likely he is unused to the picket rope, or the feed is scant. ”

“ And what is stranger still, this same bone-earth bed crops out on the south side of the chalk at Farnham, and stretches along the foot of those downs, right into Kent, making the richest hop lands in England, through Surrey, and away to Tunbridge. So that it seems as if the bed lay under the chalk everywhere, if once we could get down to it.
But how does it make the hop lands so rich?
Because hops, like tobacco and vines, take more phosphorus out of the soil than any other plants which we grow in England ”

“ Fred Scott, tenant of the farm, of which Lord Hothfield is owner, is kind enough to go over the hop-garden with us, and describe all the details. When the hops are ripe (i. e. when the seeds are hard) and ready to be gathered, the pickers swarm on the ground, and a man divides the "bine" at the bottom of the "pole" by means of a bill-hook—not cutting it too close for fear of bleeding—leaving the root to sprout next year, and then draws out the pole, to which is attached the long, creeping bine, trailing over at top. ”

“ The hops are pressed in by a screw. In bulk they will sweat a little, which will begin to subside in about eight days, at which time they should be bagged. If they sweat much and begin to change their color, they must be dried before bagging. The best size for bags is about two hundred and fifty pounds' weight, in a bag about five feet long. Common tow-cloth or Russia-hemp bags are best. Extensive hop-growers build houses over the kiln, that they may be able to use them in wet weather. ”

“ These last objects were explained by the presence of a hop-field skirting one side of the common, a hop-field luckily not yet in that state which attracts hop-pickers, or the common would hardly have been a place to which gentlemen care to take their wives. On the opposite side to the hop-field the ground fell away, and the tips of two hop-kilns peered at us over the edge. In front of us, concealed by the furze and other bushes of a prickly, clinging nature, lay the road, along which people going home to houses, as Edelgard put it, were constantly hurrying. ”

“ The uniform rate is 17s. 71⁄2d. per cwt., while hops of foreign growth are taxed 2l. 5s. per cwt.
The only mention made by Mr. Scot of the great object of dread to the hop-grower is in the following passage:
The hoppe that lykes not his entertaynement, namely, his seate, his grounde, his keeper * * * * commeth up greene and small in stalke, thicke and rough in leaves, very like unto a nettle. ”

“ One afternoon I had put up my rod and strolled down to the river where one of our party was whipping a pool of the Big Hole, trying to induce a fish to strike. He said: 'There's an old villain in there; he wants to strike but can't make up his mind to do it.' I said: 'I have a fly that will make him strike,' and as I had my book in my pocket I handed him a No. 8 Pitcher. He made two casts and hooked a beautiful trout, that weighed nineteen ounces, down. I regard the Pitcher as the best killer in my book. ”

“ And I have caught pikes with four or five hooks in their mouths, and tackle which they had broken only a few minutes before; and the hooks seemed to have had no other effect than that of serving as a sort of sauce piquante, urging them to seize another morsel of the same kind.—The advocates for a favourite pursuit never want sophisms to defend it. I have even heard it asserted, that a hare enjoys being hunted. Yet I will allow that fly-fishing, after your vindication, appears amongst the least cruel of field sports. ”

“ While he rushes away from and toward and around and under the boat, and while he is leaping from the water and turning somersaults with ugly shakes of his head, in efforts to dislodge the hook, there is at the other end of the outfit a fisherman, tortured by the fear of infirmity lurking somewhere in his tackle, and wrought to the point of distress by the thought of a light hook hold in the fish’s jaw, and its liability to tear out in the struggle. ”

“ The hops are from nine to ten hours drying, after which they are taken off the kiln and allowed to cool somewhat, and are then packed tightly into “pockets” 6 ft. long and 2 ft. wide, weighing 11/2 cwt., by means of a hop-pressing machine, which has cogs and wheels worked by hand. Of late years more care has been bestowed by some of the leading growers upon the drying of hops, so as to preserve their qualities and volatile essences, and to meet the altered requirements of brewers, who must have bright, well-managed hops for the production of light clear beers for quick draught. ”

“ The recovery of the spinning bait by regular revolutions of the winch is not always a gain, since, with all his shark-like voracity, the pike has his little caprices, and sometimes suspects the lure which is moving evenly on a straight course through the water. The bait spun home by the left hand manipulating the line while the right gives the proper motion to the rod top is considered best for pike if not for salmon. One of the good points about spinning for pike is that it is a recreative exercise to be followed after the fly-rod is laid by after autumn. ”

“ That we are not far removed from the small hop district which is to be found west and northward of this part is evidenced by the hops which the old woman was in course of plucking from the pole when her attention was arrested by the wandering pedlar. ”

“ As the pike seems to suggest the trolling-spoon, this is a good place to say a few words concerning that little-understood article of fishing tackle. In the first place, it should never have more than a single hook, and that should never be handicapped by adding a minnow, frog, or strip of fish or bacon-skin, as is so often done. The hook should be left free to perform its function, untrammelled by extraneous and useless appendages. If the angler pins his faith to them, by all means give them a fair chance on a hook [142] without a spoon; it is not only more logical, but more sportsmanlike. ”

“ Only a very raw beginner likes to take hours over landing a fish. Perhaps I held him too tight: at all events, after a furious plunge, back came the line; the casting line had snapped at the top link.
There was no more to be said or done, except to hunt for another fly in the trout fly-book. Here there was no such thing, but a local spectator offered me a huge fly, more like a gaff, and equipped with a large iron eye for attaching the gut to. Withal I suspect this weapon was meant, not for fair fishing, but for “sniggling.” Now “sniggling” is a form of cold-blooded poaching. ”

“ Here are several hop-plantations in and about this village; but for this once the prayers of the over-production men will be granted, and the devil of any hops there will be. The bines are scarcely got up the poles; the bines and the leaves are black, nearly, as soot; full as black as a sooty bag or dingy coal-sack, and covered with lice. It is a pity that these hop-planters could not have a parcel of Spaniards and Portuguese to louse their hops for them. Pretty devils to have liberty, when a favourite recreation of the Donna is to crack the lice in the head of the Don! ”

“ HE hops used in beer-brewing are the female flowers of the hop plant known to botanists as the Humulus lupulus of Linnæus. At first sight it may seem strange that hops and wolves should have anything in common, but it has been explained that the word lupulus comes from the name by which the Romans called the hop plant—Lupus Salictarius—the idea being that the hop was as destructive among the willows (where it grew) as a wolf among sheep. ”

“ There was a laugh at this, and then Hop had succeeded in doing what he had tried for. He had got the good will of the miners.
Having satisfied himself on this point, he stepped up to the bar, and, nodding pleasantly to Hoker, the boss, he observed:
"Me likee chuckee dicee for um dlinks, so be."
"You would, eh? Well, I never yet chucked dice with a Chinee; but blamed if I don't do it jest this once. What's it goin' ter be, fur all hands?"
"Lat light; allee samee all hands gittee lillee dlink. If me lose me pay; if you lose you allee samee givee um dlinks." ”

“ Manage him with a gentle hand, keeping him, however, from roots and stumps, which he will try to fasten the line upon, till he is sufficiently tired, and a landing net can be used; but by no means, however apparently exhausted he may be, attempt to lift him out with the rod and line only.
In trolling, the bait hook should never be thrown too far; in small rivers the opposite bank may be fished with ease, though the violence of its falls upon the water in long throws soon spoils the bait by rubbing off its scales. In angling for pike always prefer a rough wind. ”