-a book in which one can
smell the violets--as the test of a real country lover; I mean a
country lover who, besides the gift of acute observation, has the
deeper gift of imaginative perception. If only the book could have
been illustrated by the pencil of Randolph Caldecott, such a union of
sympathy between author and artist would have produced a work
unparalleled in rural literature.

Like all insects the aphis has its special insect enemies, among which
the lady-bird ("lady-cow" in Worcestershire) is the most important. It
lays its eggs in clusters on the hop-leaf, and in a few days the larvae
(called "niggers") are hatched, aggressive-looking creatures with
insatiable appetites. 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. At Farnham,
where many of the tradespeople indulged in a little annual flutter as
small hop growers, in addition to a more regular source of income from
their respective trades, it was said that the first question on
meeting each other was not, "How are you?" but "How are _they_?"

Hop-picking is always somewhat remi