Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1896-12-02
ENGLISH HOP YARDS.
HARVEST SCENES DESCRIBED sY An
AMERICAN VISITOR.

Work That Requires Application During
Long Days For Small Eeturns-Pictsr-
esque Situations, bat There Is Too Much
Poverty to Admit Of Poetry.
Yesterday spent at Mailing, an an
Gent market town about 80 miles from
London, which is in the midst of one of
the most fertile and extensive hop dis
tricts in the world, the soil being OF the
rich quality that produces the famous
golden hop. / stood on an eminence
and surveyed in every direction the
plantations of tall hops, luxuriant ON
the straight. firmly set poles. the deep
green of the vino leaves beautifully
gemmed by the great punches Of golden
flower. On hillside little distance
to the left were the uniform white tents
of the hop pickers, like the encampment
of an army-for you must know that
the hop pickers are not residents Of the
neighborhood. They come from distances
By families. q large proportion Of them
from London. And, be it known, the
majority Of the hop pickers are wretch
edly poor. The pay for hop picking is
so very little that only by the united
efforts of family of three or four
workers is the result Of the days labor
worth the effort. Last year, for exam
pie, the pay Tor picking was a shilling
for seven bushels, so that worker had
to complete seven bushels before the
shilling was earned. This year condi-
lions are little better, but at the best
hop picking is only profitable when the
family has six Or eight pairs Of expert
hands to strip the vines swiftly. Some
of the women have reduced this picking
to an art, the def facility with which
| they take four or five flowers at time
completely deceivipg the novice, who
| imagines skill to lie nothing ID this
business.
| The poles in hopfeld are SO perfectly
set at right angles that you may look
| down uniform avenue of overhanging
vines in whatever direction you turn
your eyes. But this exactitude is less
| for beauty CT appearance than for con-
venience of arrangement of picking par
ties, for field is let out in small Sec
tons, SO many hills-two poles make a
hill-to family, according as the fam
| lily has agreed for half bin or more.
Therefore, rs you walk down the path
that intersects d hopfield, you see here
and there at fixed distances apart the
different independent groups of pckers,
their canvas bins, with wide, flaring
mouths, all Of regular size. stretched OF,
poles and set on Crosspieces the length
of their section. and while the man cuts
the vines q third of the way up the poles
and pulls up the poles to carry to the
bin side the women and children inces-
| sanity work frem G a. IN. to D. ~. q,
| save only for the half hour at noon for
dinner. And what sight it isl At the
very edge of the field where l spent
most time rears, rugged and tall, the
| ivy Graped tower Of st. Lconards, said
to be the very first, and therefore the
Oldest, OF the Norman towers, the pic.
turesIue ruins Of which SO interest the
intelligent visitor to rural England.
This tower Was built by Gundulf, bishop
of Rochester, somewhere about l01S-90.
This abbey, by the way, has been re.
stored and is once more Il home of NUNS.
AT the foot of this old tower yesterday
rolled and tumblod score of grimy,
half naked, tatterdemalion children, OF
ages running from the infant that should
have been in arms to q pair of 4-year.
old twins, in patched, dirty red dresses,
and with huge brass earrings hiding tire
lobes Of their uEclean little ears. Thus
did half barbarous young nodesty kicl
up its slovenly little legs il contempt OF
that still grim though dismantlcd tower,
built eight centuries ago to Topel the
assaults of those savages who were fore.
runners of tie present day Englishnan.
And among the vines yonder were ths
motley groups of persons to whom these
little human blots appertained. Not by
any means IS picturesque and fascinat
ing as italian grape pickers; nothing Of
the rich, dark beauty of the southern
types, but different sort of interest at.
taches to these hopelessly ignorant, hall
vagrant creatures, who have come tc
the picking-by donkey cart, by train
on foot-bearing with them their mis-
cradle utensils for cooking and faring,
in their rags and their tatters, the filth
Of which they are not ashamed, sleep
ing by night in tents if they are so for
! esihotSJ anu UUuCE IUQe
wlgwams Of boughs, if they must, work
ing from day dawn to evening close TO,
mere pittaEce-yet Eot woltish or sur.
IL, not rCde-indeed, good natured
when you address them, and in rough
way ocular or in shy way conmunica.
tive. Here and there, to be sure, some.
thing more pretentious, the epitome OF
lower middle class shift and tidiness,
but in the main hop picking scene
such rs You may witness at Mailing
tells you what pitifrl poverty and
wretohedness are hidden from the world
by the purple splendor Of the richest na.
tion upon which the curious sun looks
askance
Fill in imaginatively the picture OF
which / have given but true outlines.
Scan the hillside encampment, where in.
fancy ana age swarm about the evening
fires. Walk through the fields of vine cir,
poles, that seem compact mass as you
look down upon them. Talk with these
women and children stripping the vel.
low flowers swiftly from the stems.