It is amusing to watch them hunting over the
lower side of the leaf like a sporting dog in a turnip field, and
devouring the lice in quantities. I knew an old hop grower in
Hampshire who had a standing offer of a guinea a quart for lady-birds,
but it is scarcely necessary to add that the reward was never claimed.
The hop is dioecious (producing male and female blossoms on separate
plants), but very rarely both can be found on the same stem--the plant
thus becoming monoecious. In 1893, a very hot dry year, several
specimens were found, including one in Kent, one in Surrey, one in
Herefordshire, and one in my own hopyards at Aldington. It is curious
that the same unusual season should have produced the same abnormality
in places so far apart, practically representing all the hop districts
of the country.
"Till James's Day be past and gone,
You might grow hops or you might grow none."
St. James's Day is July 25, and so uncertain was the crop in the days
before insecticides were in use, that the saying fairly represents the
specially speculative nature of the crop in former times. As an
instance of the effects of varying years I had the uncommon experience
of picking two crops in twelve months: the first in a very late season
when the picking did not commence till after Worcester hop-fair day,
September 19th, and the second the following year when picking was
unusually early, and was completed before the fair day.
Pages:
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321