The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-09-18 00:00:00

THE HOP-PICKING IN KENT.

A Correspondent of the Standard, writing from
Maidstone, thus describes hop-picking in Kent
For twenty years past there has not been such a luxuriant
growth in the hop plantations of Kent as the farmers are
now busily gathering. It is true that the yield contains a
large percentage of diseased hops, but this only has the effect
of increasing the demand for pickers, in order that as few more
of the flowers may be spoiled as possible ; and the cry for addi-
tional hands is general throughout the county. When it is
stated that the distriet around Maidstone alone has received
by rail, during the past fortnight, from London, Wool-
wich, and Greenwich, nearly 20,000 pickers, some idea
may be formed of the importance of the hop harvest as an
occasional means of employment to a certain class of the
population. Added to these immigrant hop-pickers are
large numbers of the resident cottager!, who are some-
times mixed with those from a distance, but oftener set to
work in smaller plantations by themselves. Many of the
farmers object to employ strangers, while others (and these
are principally the larger growers) depend upon them ex-
elusively, finding that they are less independent in imirit and
more eager to earn money than those who have homes in the
neighbourhood and other employment to turn to. It will be
readily understood that these immigrant pickers, the large
proportion of whom come from the metropolis, are drawn
from the very lowest strata of society. The London poor
who are provided with constant employment at home are not
those who would sacrifice their small but regular earnings
for the uncertain profits of a few weeks' hop-picking ; but to
those who are living day by day, a vagrant and hopeless life,
the prospect of gaining 28. or 2s. 6& daily, without having
to work very hard for it, is unusually cheerful and stimu-
lating. The question "Who they are, and whence they
conic," must often have occurred to any one who has seen
them huddled together outside the railway station at which
the train from Bricklayers' Arms has deposited them, or
trailing along the dusty road towards the hop garden of some
grower whose name they have discovered, or fairly at work
among the poles in every kind of uncouth and disorderly
dress. Those whe have had much experience of them—such
as the county police—are ready with the answer. They are
chiefly from the lowest quarters of the metropolis, and
amongst them are costermongers, street hawkers of every
kind, and the miscellaneous class of vagrants. The female
pickers are those who follow their husbands, supplemented
by badly paid sack and slop makers and tailoresses from the
City, fruit-stall keepers, and flower girls. In tho East
of London, Whitechapel, Shadwell, Ratcliffe, and Spital-
fields contribute pickers in abundance, while St. Giles's
Drury•lane, and Seven Dials, the Surrey districts of
Lambeth, Southwark, and Rotherhithe, together with
the back parts of Islington and Westminster, yearly
empty the inhabitants of their stifling oourts and alleys
into the fair lanes and fields of Kent. Furmerly this periodical
invasion was a source of great disorder in the districts con-
cerned, where noisy crowds congregated and clamoured for
employment, but the Kent Society, for the employment and
improved lodging of the pickers, now makes arrangements
by which many thousands are communicated with at their
homes and taken by bpecial trains straight to their work.
The society has also been instrumental in inducing the
farmers to pay greater regard to the health and comfort of
their pickers, and neat brick huts, or clean white tents, in
many instances replace the dilapidated hovels of former
years. There is still room for improvement, however.
Greater restrictions should be placed on the huddling to-
gether of families and sexes which frequently takes place.
Those who have not witnessed the ingathering of the hop
harvest would be much interested by the sight. The toppling
down of the well clad peles as they yield to the strength of
the binman, the merry voices of the pickers, and their varied
and fantastic dress, combine to produce a peculiar scene.
There is also something interesting in the methodical man-
ner in which the work is conducted. The pickers work in
pairs at a bin, and four or five bins, in a row, form a set.
When picking is commenced six rows of bins are placed at the
commencement of a " drift " or strip of poles, ten " hills "
(each hill being planted with three poles) wide, extending
from one end of the plantation to the other, the
rows of bins being also ten hills impart. The bins
are then supplied with the poles from a depth of
five hills either way, so that 100 hills have been pulled
before the set is exhausted. The pickers then shoulder their
bins and march lower down the drift, leaving the dismantled
poles lying upon the open space which they have just
cleared behind them. At stated intervals men go round the
plantation to measure out the boss in wicker baskets con-
taining a bushel, for each of which 2d., or a fraction less in
good seasons, is credited to the picker. Flits measuring of the
hops requires very careful treatment, for the hops are so ex-
ceedingly light that the least pressure of the hand greatly re-
duces their bulk, and bitter are the reproaches of the pickers
when they fancy they are being cheated out of their earnings.
Ten bushels fllliane of the sacks in which the hops are con-
veyed to the oast-house to be dried, and should weigh just 561 b.
A bin when full holds 20 bushels, which is about as much as
the fastest hand can pick in a day. In exceptionally prolific
and healthy seasons more may have been picked; but the
ordinary earnings of a clever hand during an average hop.
ping may be assigned at 2s. 61. per day, which is the return
made for fifteen bushels. Showers of rain coming on of
coureelnake a difference, and eometimee work is stopped for
the greater part of the day. In thercase of binmen, •half a
day's wages are assured, and if they are not prevented from
working up to twelve o'clock they receive their full pay of
18s. per week There have been only two wet days as yet
during the present season, and the work is making good pro-
gress,- but notwithstanding this the yield is so unusually
abundant that the picking is not unlikely to last for almost a
month longer.

Oysters have reappeared in the principal Parisian
restaurants,