3-053-836 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Hop-growing on the vinery principle, 1873. 'Hop-growing is very picturesque, but it is an anxious and expensive occupation...[One foe] is the wind...should the farmer wake in the night and hear a stiff breeze blowing, he knows that destruction is going on; the bine is lashed and torn...In vain are "lews" erected. They afford some shelter; but no plan has succeeded so well as that invented by Mr. Thomas Coley...His method is this. Two rows of 12-ft. poles are fixed permanently in the ground, 12 ft. apart one way and 3ft the other. Each couple is braced together by a cross piece 4 ft. 6 in. from the ground. From this piece to the tops of the next, two...16-ft. poles, are laid, fitting into a staple at the lower end and into a wire fork at the upper. These poles are movable. At the gathering-time the bine is cut and the pole is removed altogether, making the picking much more convenient...the plant gets more sun and air, and in falling over at the ends of the slanting poles it is quite out of the wind. Though a great improvement, this plan has not deprived hop-gardens of their beauty...Those...near Faversham, where Mr. Coley's plan was first tried, look exceedingly beautiful, and the crops are the heaviest in the county'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.