COUNTRY LIFE EVERY year I vow to waste no more
time hanging about the hop-kilns during the drying. Every year I fall. How could anybody, with any curiosity toward country affairs, stay indoors when the sound of that unmistakable moan comes in at his window, especially a workroom window ? It is the roar of the draught into the oasts, nowadays usually an induced draught. When the hop-drying is done by an open fire of anthracite coal (laid on an altar about three feet from the ground and about four feet square) the draught is fierce enough, and no electric fans are needed. It is regulated by little trap-doors at the base of the kilns, four to each kiln. The dryer (a highly skilled craftsman) regu- lates the inflow as delicately as a photographer regulates the inflow of light through his lenses by controlling the iris.
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