Care must be taken to weed and to fence the hop garden:—
Grasse, thistle and mustard seede, hemlock and bur, Tine, mallow and nettle, that keepe such a stur, With peacock and turkie, that nibbles off top, Are verie ill neighbors to seelie poore hop.
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If hops do looke brownish, then are ye to slow, If longer ye suffer, those hops for to growe. Now, sooner ye gather, more profite is found, If weather be faier, and deaw of ye ground.
Not break of, but cut of, from hop the hop string, Leave growing a little, again for to spring. Whos hil about pared, and therewith new clad, That nurrish more sets, against March to be had.
Hop hillock discharged, of every set See then without breaking, ecche poll ye out get, Which being betangled, above in the tops: Go carry to such, as are plucking of hops.
We have quoted rather largely from Tusser’s poem, thinking that it may interest hop-growers of the present day.
Reynolde Scot’s appeal was not in vain, for in 1608 there is no doubt that hop plantations were fairly abundant, though the plant was not sufficiently cultivated for home consumption. In that year an Act was passed against the importation of spoilt hops. Until 1690, however, the greater part of supply was drawn from abroad, and then, to encourage home production, a duty of twenty shillings per cwt. over and above all other charges, was put upon those imported. Walter Blith, writing in 1643, speaks of hops as a “national commoditie.” In 1710, the duty of a penny per lb. was imposed upon all hops reared in England, and threepence on foreign hops. In subsequent years slight variations were made in the amount of the duty, and finally it was abolished, when hop-grounds at once began to increase.
When the duty was high, and hops scarce, substitutes for Humulus lupulus were experimented with, among others, pine and willow bark, cascarilla bark, quassia, gentian, colocynth, walnut leaf, wormwood bitter, extract of aloes, cocculus indicus berries, capsicum, and others too numerous to mention, picric acid being perhaps the most modern. None of these have been found to be an equivalent for the hop, lacking its distinct and independent elements of activity.