The Exchange Buildings form three sides of a quadrangle, 194 feet by 180
in the clear space, with arcades or piazzas in front, and the whole is in
a style of architecture corresponding with the north front of the
Town-Hall and Old Exchange, which forms the fourth side of the square at
the head of Castle-street. The east side of these buildings on the ground
floor, contains a coffee-room, 94 feet by 52, with appropriate rooms and
offices for the keeper, &c.; on the second story over the coffee-room, is
a room for the under-writers, upon the principle of Lloyd's in London, 72
feet by 36: a second room, 69 feet by 29, with several other rooms
attached to them. The north and west sides of these buildings are brokers'
and merchants' offices, and counting houses. In the centre of the area is
erected an elegant group of statues in commemoration of the heroic and
immortal Nelson.

* * * * *

THE MONTHS

* * * * *

THE HOP HARVEST.

The southern counties of England, particularly Surrey and Kent, now yield
their valuable produce of hops in this month. The common hop, _humulus
lupulus_, is propagated either by nursery plants or by cuttings. These are
set in _hills_, formed by digging holes in the spring, which are filled
with fine mould, and the number of which varies from 800 to 1,000, or
1,200 per acre. One, two, or three plants are put in each hill; but, if
hops are designed to be raised from cuttings, four or five of these, from
three to four inches in length, are planted and covered one inch deep with
fine mould.

At the end of the first year it becomes necessary to put poles into the
hills, round which the bines reared from plants are wound; at the
expiration of the second year, full-sized poles, from 15 to 20 feet, are
set, (though the hop-bines will run to the height of 50 feet,) in the
proportion of two poles to each hill, and a similar number of hop-plants
are fastened loosely round each pole, by means of withered rushes. Hops
begin to flower about the latter end of June or the beginning of July. The
poles are now entirely covered with verdure, and the pendent flowers
appear in clusters and light festoons. The hops, which are the scaly
seed-vessels of the female plants, are, when the seed is formed,
(generally about the end of August,) picked off by women and children; for
this purpose the poles are taken up with the plants clinging to them. T