40 AGRICULTURAL SURVEY

wages are fourteen pence from Michatlmas to May-day, and eighteen pence from thence to Michaelmas again. It is to be observed, that the shopman has the grass that grows on the drains, with the broken pole ends, and often the binds. Upon taking an average of the expence of la- bourage of my hop grounds for four years, I find it cost me four pounds per acre; for the working part only. The poles, manure, rent, and tithe, about nine pounds ten ten shillings per acre; which brings a certain expence of thirteen pounds ten shillings per acre; if there is not a hop grown.

‘¢ The crops in this country, in the best years, are very small, compared with the Kentish plantations, and do not in the very best of years average eight hundred weight per acre; owing I apprehend more to the number of small planters, who have neither knowledge or purse necessary to this intricate and expensive culture, than the badness of the land. With respeét to manures, the greater difficulty in the management of this plant, is to procure hops of a large size. The bind is easily forced by the use of rags, but they, if not properly used, will make the hops small. I apprehend the best way of using them, to prevent that evil, is not to lay more than eight hundred weight per acre, mixed with three or four cart loads of good virgin earth, of a light black soil, or strong land. This composition to be made at least six months before laying on, and turned two or three times, then laid upon the hills after the tying before Midsummer.

«©[ have used the scrapings and parings of oil leather, instead of rags mixed as above, and‘have found them excellent manure.

‘¢ Malt culm I have likewise used, and think it a good manure, and particularly so,, where land 4s subject to the small snail or slug, which eat the young bind on its first appearance; for it sticks so fast to their slimy bodies, that they cannot creep over it to the bind. Where land is subs