The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1897-01-05
ENGLISH HOP YARDS.
HARVEST SCENES DESCRIBED BY AN
AMERICAN VISITOR.

Poverty to Admit OF Poetry.
Yesterday spent at Mailing, an an
cient market town about 80 miles from
London, which is in the midst of one O
the most fertile and extensive hop dis
tricts in the world, the soil being of tn,
rich quality that produces the famous
golden hop. l stood on an eminence
and surveyed in every direction the
plantations Of tall hops, luxuriant on
the straight, firmly set poles, the deer
green Of the vine 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 piokers, 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. 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 a family of three or four
workers is the result of the days labor
worth the effort. Last year, for exam
pie, the pay for picking was a shilling
for seven bushels. so that worker had
to complete seven bushels before the
shilling was earned. This year condi-
tions are little better, but at the best
hop picking is only profitable when the
family has s'x 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 flowers at time
completely deceiviDg the novice, who
imagi--cs skill to be nothing in this
business.
The poles in hopfield 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 of appearance than for con-
venlence of arrangement of picking par
ties, for field is let out i'm small Sec
tions, so many hills-two poles make
hill-to family, according as the fam
lily has agreed for half a bin or more.
Therefore. as you walk down the path
that intersects hopfeld, you see here
and there at fixed distances apart the
different independent groups of pickers,
their canvas bins, with wide, faring
mouths, all of regular size, stretched on
poles and set on crosspieces the length
OF their section, and while the man cuts
the vines 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 from 6 a. m. to z D. m.,
save only for the half hour at noon for |
dinner. And what q sight it is! At the |
very edge of the field where l 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 Gundulf, bishop
OF Rochester, somewhere about I07S-9O.
This abbey, by the way, has been re-
stored and is once more home of nuns.
AT the foot Of this old tower yesterday
rolled and tumbled score of grimy,
half naked, tatterdemalion children, of
have been in arms to pair Of 4-year-
old twins, in patched, dirty red dresses,
and with huge brass earrings hiding the
Iobes OF their unclean little ears. Thus
1ld 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 savages who were fore
Of the present day Englishman.
And among the vines yonder were the
motley groups of persons to whom these
little human bIots appertained. Not by
my means as picturesque and fascinat-
ng as Italian grape pickers; nothing of
he rich, dark beauty of the southern
ypes, but different sort of interest at
aches to these hopelessly ignorant, half
'agrant creatures, who have come to
he picking-by donkey cart, by train,
IN foot-bearing with them their mis-
rable utensils for cooking and faring,
n their rags and their tatters, the filth
Il which they are not ashamed, Sleep
ng by night in tents if they are so for
innate, behind hedges and under rude
of boughs, if they must, work
ng from day dawn to evening close for
mere pittance-yet not wolfish or sur
y, not rude-indeed, good natured
Vhen you address them, and in rough
way jocular or in shy way communica-
i've. Here and there, to be sure, some
hing more pretentious, the epitome of
over middle class shift and tidiness,
nut in the main hop picking scene
UGH as. you may witness at Mailing
ellis you what pitiful poverty and
are hidden from the world
y the purple splendor of the richest ma
ion upon which the curious sun looks
skance.
Fill in imaginatively the picture of
7hich 1 have given but true outlines.
can the hillside encampment, where in
ancy and age swarm about the evening
res. Walk through the fields of vine girt
oles, that seem compact mass as you
,ok down upon them. Talk with these
'omen and children stripping the yell
wv flowers swiftly from the stems
lance at the various troops of thought.
,ssly begotten infants rolling IN tho