--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Alder, Lydia D. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 3 number: 8 published: 1900-06 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Lydia D. Alder, "Hop-Picking in Kent," *Improvement Era* 3, no. 8 (June 1900): 611–612.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera38unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera38unse start_page: 611 end_page: 612 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1900-06) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera38unse publication_year: 1900 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1900, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Hop-Picking in Kent HOP-PICKING IN KENT. BY LYDIA D. ALDER, ENGLISH MISSIONARY. We went to the little town of Tong, in Kent, only ten miles from the sea, on a beautiful day, in the early part of September, to see the hop-pickers in the gardens that so plentifully abound there. These hop gardens are very pleasing to the eye. Much care is bestowed upon them, in return for which they yield a handsome profit. Hundreds of acres of ground in Kent and other places are planted with hop vines. These are trained to a height of perhaps twenty feet, and are planted in straight rows about six feet apart. Tied early in the season high up the poles, they twine around and, in most instances, across to the next row. They present a very pretty appearance when matured and ready for picking, and to one walking in these gardens there is a healthful, invigorating odor. Hop-picking time is a busy and profitable part of the year. Many people, mostly women and children, look forward to this time, to earn a few extra shillings, with which to purchase some bit of finery, or to add to the winter's supply of necessaries. The day of our visit is cool, and Dame Nature, in her leafy dress, is lovely to look upon; chatting on the way, the distance of two and a half miles to the field is soon ended, and we go among the hop-pickers, some of whom we have met before. Joining in the, to us, novel task, we are soon quickly filling up the baskets with large, clean hops, while engaged in pleasant conversation. Merry sounds are audible here and there over the garden; children's prattle and laughter, mingle with the more serious tones 612 IMPROVEMENT. ERA. of the elder people. All the pickers arehappy in the work of filling up the bushel baskets, which when full nets the picker a shilling each. A good picker can thus earn from three to four shillings a day.Some of the laborers earn as much as eight pounds during the season which lasts from a month to six weeks. Being informed by the "pole-men," who cut the hops down, that "These are the last for tonight," we finish stripping them, and are invited to see the hops prepared, and we walk over to the building used for this purpose, called a hop-oast. A very unpretentious one it is. Two men are engaged in measuring and cutting the material for the sacks, in which the hops are sent to market. A gentleman introduced us, saying, "These are people from America; they would like to see how hops are dried." The man addressed answered, "They must be a long ways from home, then." He took us to an upper floor where great beds of hops were spread for cooling and drying before being placed in the press. Then ascending up another rough staircase against a wall, we look in where the hops are drying. The floor is made of a coarse, strong screen wire, (only the dust passes through it) where the hops are spread about a foot thick over the space of a large room, from whose walls a funnel-shaped aperture, or stack, rises about thirty feet, to the outer roof, on top of which is a stack, also funnel-shaped, about one-third of whose space on the side is open. Through this funnel the heat and dampness from the hops escape. These are called kilns. The man who attends to the drying of the hops, turns them over with a wooden rake about every three hours, night and day. Down stairs, under these two screen floors, the fires are kept up day and night on an open brick structure about three by five feet on top and about four feet high. Smokeless Welsh coal, something like our anthracite, is used. Charcoal and stick sulphur are also used, making a clear, strong fire. The two men working there have red caps, with buttons and tassels on their pointed tops. The scene and surroundings are so glaring that one may almost imagine himself gazing into that historic place of the infernal regions, where we are informed the atmosphere is very warm. The man explains that if we were to witness these fires at night, we would see them at their best. It must indeed be a