Hop Stringing Probably no other crop needs such elaborate assistance
as the hop, and in March that assistance can be seen taking its first form in the astonishing straw-coloured pattern of new strings that shines out from behind the twenty-foot hedges that are unique to a hop-growing countryside. No other farming occupation produces anything quite so fantastic as these huge protective slices of hawthorn, the shimmering maze of strings or the sight of men on stilts moving giganti- cally up and down the aisles of bare grey chestnut-pole,. Much stringing, or tying, has already been done; the rest will be done this month. In May the young hop-shoots must be helped, anti-clock-wise, up the strings, and throughout the summer the crop will need more help, more specially devised tools and more washes and sprays than any other. Finally no other crop will be gathered as this will be gathered when the Cockneys descend on us in September, complete with purple suits and wasp-waists, lip-stick and plucked eyebrows, the incredibly smart limousine with Mum and Dad and our Perse, the portable radio and the Yorkshire pudding baked round the beef on Sundays. And certainly no other crop will so successfully turn the village street into the Mile End Road.
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