The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1896-11-17
ENGLISH HOP R
Harvest Scenes Described by an American
Visitor.

G4CAOm 6ER0G GOWn aOOuJ 81 miles LEOul
London, which is in the midst of one
of the most fertile and extensive hop
districts in the world, the soil being of
the rich quality that produces the
famous golden hop. Istood on an emf
nenc3 and surveyed in every direction
the plantations Of tall hops. luxuriant
on the straight, firmly set poles, the
deep green of the vine leaves beauti-
fully gemmed by the great punches Of
golden flower. On a hillside a 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 pjckers are not resi-
dentso of the neighborhood. They come
from distances by families, a large pro
portion of them from London. And,
be it known, the majority Of the hop
pickers wer9 w~retchedly poor. The
pay for hop picking is so very little
that only by the united efforts OF a
family of three or four workers is the
result of the days labor worth the
effort. Last year, for example, the
pay for picking was a shilling forseven
bushels, so that a worker had to COM
plete even bushels before the shilling
was earned. This year conditions are
a little better, but at the best hop pick
ing 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 deft facility with which they
take four or five f1wers at O time
completely deceiving the novice, who
imagines skill to be nothing in this
business.
The po,es in a hopfeld are SO per
tectly set at right angles that you may
look down a uniform avenue of over
hanging vines in whatever direction
you turn your eyes. But this exacti
tude is less for beauty of appearance
than for convenience of arrangement
of picking parties, for a field is let out
in small sections, so many hills-two
poles make a hill-:o a family, accord.
ing as the family has agreed for half a
bin or nor Therefore, as you walk
down the path that i~ntersects a hop
field, you see here and there at fixed
distances apart the different independ-
ent groups of pickers, their canvas
bins, with wide, faring mouths, all of
regular size, stretched on poles and set
on cro1spieces the length Of their sec,
ton, and while the man cuts the vines
a third Of the way up the poles and
pulls up the poles to carry to the bin
side the m and children in~cessant-
ly work from 6 q, m. to z p. M, save
only for the half hour at noon for din
ner. And what a sight it is! At the
very edge of the field where I spent
most time rears. rugged and tall, the
ivy draped tower of st. Leonards, said
to be the very first, and therefore the
oldest, of the Norman towers, the pic
turesque ruins of which so interest the
intelligent visitor to rural England.
This tower was built by G 1ndulf, bishop
Of r leicester, somewhere about 1918 80.
This abbey, by the way, has been re-
stored and is once more a home Of nuns.
At the foot of this old tower yesterday
rolled and tumbled a score of grimy,
half naked. characterization children, of
ages running from the infant that
should have been in arms to a pair of
4 year old twins, in patched, dirty red
dresses, and with huge brass earrings
hiding the lobes of their unclean little
ears. Thus did half barbarous young
modesty kick up its slovenly little legs
in contempt of that still grim though
dismantled tower, built eight centuries
ago to repel the assaults of those saw
ages who were forerunners of the pres
ent day Euglishman.
And among the vines yonder were
the motley groups of persons to whom
these little human blOts appertained.
Not by any mea as pictures que aud
fascinating as Italian grape pickers;
nothing of the rich, dark beauty of the
southern types, but a different sort of
interest attaches to these hOpelessly
ignorant, half vagrant creatures, who
have come to the picking-by donkey
cart, by train, On foot-bearing with
them their miserable utensils for cook
ing and faring, in their rags and their
tatters, the filth of which they are not
ashamed, sleeping by night in tents if
they are so fortunate, behind hedges
and under rude wigwams of b3ughs, if
they must, working from day dawn to
evening close for a mere pittance-yet
not Wnlfsh or surely. not nda-indaed.