CORRESPONDENCE
A SURREY HOP-FIELD.
ONLY a retrospect of a few months to silence, bare earth, and wintry weather, and to a bin 3, damp mist, through which we see the hap-poles peering in pointed stacks, recalling as we stand our childhood days and the wigwams we read of in Peter Parley's tales. A flock of brown linnets flit across the deserted brown field, but the monotony now and then is relieved by a flash of gold as a yellow-bunting perches on a pole. Our faith in winter is repaid, and now, as we wander through the wood, listening to the cry of partridges, the scene is changed, and the air redolent with a strong scent betrays the secret of the earth. "Is it well with the hops P " We put the question unconsciously in the words of the prophet of old, for the over- anxious look on the farmer's face merits such an inquiry. He is not a modern, everyday farmer, but a tall, burly yeoman, in a broad-brimmed black-felt hat and shirt-sleeves, with a broad-brimmed smile, too, and a hearty "Well, Master !" for greeting. There was a great hubbub and chattering and crying amid signs of social standing in that hop-field. You can verily breathe the difference of class as you pass from field to field under different rule. Here with Farmer Dick you picked among the "upper ten" of hoppers ; there were no out-pickers, only those who had picked there,—some for ten, some for fifteen, some for twenty years. "No more poles," rang out above the noise as we crossed the field, and a cheer arose like an " Amen " to the loud bass chant. "No more poles," and women realised how their backs were aching, and babies cried out at the mere fact of existence. There was a long day before that shouting cry, so we learnt from a woman, who stooped to pick out a king-hop to give us as we questioned her. First of all, the hoppers go to the farmer, and each draws a number by lot ; then his or her name is entered in a book. The number is the standing- place in the field, where all share alike except No. 1, and with No. 1 rests solely the power of striking or non-striking. Only No. 1 can raise a voice, either in protest at pay or to calm dis- content, and as No. 1 falls by lot, certain cantankerous leaders can never command a strike. But there were but few grumblers in Farmer Dick's field, for his generous measure drew laggard smiles from the hardest faces. At 6 o'clock in the morning each picker takes the place allotted, and is provided with a seven-bushel basket, marked inside with black circles to. measure the picking; the pullers lift the poles, and place them across the baskets, where busy hands soon despoil the beautiful green tangle of the soft green bunches of flowers ; only when the red-blight comes is the colour marred. The pickers stand in rows about six feet apart, and pick to the right and left, and when the long row is finished the sitting is changed, baskets emptied into the surplus measures, and dragged to the next row. Whole families stand in groups, with the inevitable baby in a perambulator, a cotton um- brella rolled up in a piece of oil-cloth being laid alongside. Hands get stained a dark brown, and hunger and sleep are the result of the health-giving scent of the hops which hang heavy overhead. "No more poles," and soon every hop dis- appears; but the work is not yet completed, for hoppers are busy, first in picking out stray leaves, then in the various " dodges " for raising hops in baskets to their fullest measure, all in full view of Farmer Dick, who smiles good-humouredly as he pulls out his pencil and book. " Lor' bless you, Sir, I've known an old boot poked in afore now ; " and he did not look put-out in the very least. The process is this,—two pickers plunge their hands in under the hops till they meet in the middle, then raise them lightly and shake them, the hops are shovelled up at the sides to hide the tell-tale black lines, and if they sink in the middle, "Well, it's a way hops have," they say, and no one looks surprised ! It is always anxious work when the tally-man begins at the other end, for hops are kittle cattle, and you cannot go on raising them ; We go the round with the tally.man, noting the idiosyncrasy of each. "Do you call that seven bushel, Jane P Our best picker, Sir ; nine bushel this morning, seven now. Sixteen bushel, Jane. If you call that seven bushel P Of course you'll say Yes ; you'll say anything. Well, you must owe me some on Mon- day."—" I allays pays where I borrers, Master Dick."—" All right, all right. Jane knew me, Sir, when I was a young nipper like him yonder,"—pointing to a juvenile edition of Farmer Dick standing on his head in a seven-bushel basket of hops. "I used to steal your currants and gooseberries, Jane, eh P" A mild roar of applause greeted this:wit, and we passed to the next basket. In our wake the pullers carried off the spoil to the wooden frames, over which sheets of canvas. were fastened with wooden pins. "Called a surplice, like yur dresses yur choir in," Dick said ; but whether " surplus " or " surplice" we failed to gather. Five bushel, eh P Oh !: hops will sink, of course; bound to begin t'other end some- times. Bad hops P Now don't grizzle, Mrs. Morgan. Three- pence-halfpenny a bushel, remember. And that extra half- penny, Sir, makes a difference to ray pocket in this small field of £24." We assented; hops made us lazy ; we could not calculate in a -moment how many bushels that represented. On and on journeyed the tally-man, passing Darby and Joan, wrinkles and furrows of time marking the nearness of a golden wedding ; catching love-looks as a young couple join hands under some desperate tangle of greenery ; passing old Granny, and the proud child promoted to a basket of her own, to the tired mother of seven ; and so till the page was full. While up in the blue a disturbed lark sang jerkily, as if annoyed by the hubbub below, and near by a grey-and-white donkey tried to rub a little sense into his head against a discarded pole.
And we? Do we awaigour Tally-man with baskets of life's picking full to the highest line P There will be a great deal of heaving necessary when our turn comes for reckoning in the great field of Eternity. But that is looking beyond ; now we watch the pickers home."' The hops: are carted to the kiln where the old drier receives them, dries them, and packs them in huge pockets, and they pass out of our reach down the red Surrey lane,
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