Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/619

 MALT-HOUSES, KILNS, HOP-OASTS, ETC. 595 1271. Remarks. This appeal's to be an expensive mode of drying hops, compared with that practised by many of the growers in Kent, who liave adopted the improved circular kihis invented by jNIr. Read, which will be next described. Design V. — A Hop-kiln or Oast, on an improved Principle, erected in 1832, at Teston, in Kent. 1272. Hops have been dried from time immemorial on kilns with cockles, furnaces, or other fireplaces beneath them ; the smoke and heated air being allowed to ascend through the hops, and to pass off by an opening in the apex of the roof, as in the case ot the kilns for drying malt, corn, &c. About the year 1796, Mr. John Read, then a practical gardener at Horsemendean, in Kent (ha'ing had extensive experience in heating hot-houses by smoke flues, and having also tried steam in pineries so early as 1802), began to turn his attention to the subject of building hop-kilns. Mr. Read has subsequently invented his well-known improved garden syringe, his stomach pump, and various other surgical instruments of acknowledged importance ; and it may easily be conceived that so ingenious a mind would improve any object to which he might turn his attention. The idea of applying flues like those of hot-houses to generate heated air, for the purpose of drying hops, very naturally occurred to him ; and he soon found an opportunity of caiTying his ideas into execution. iIr. Read has, since he began to erect hop-kilns on his plan, made various improvements in them ; and he has furnished us with the Design about to be described, in which the whole are combined. 1273. The object in view, in kiln-drying Hops, is to discharge the water contained in the flowers. This, ]Ir. Read has ascertained to be, when the flowers are newly gathered, about 500 lbs. in every hundred bushels ; and he finds that this moisture may be converted into vapour, by the expenditm-e of one bushel of common coals to every hundred-weight of hops, in twelve hours, the hops being spread on the floor of the kiln, in the proportion of one bushel to every square foot. 1274. TTie Process of drying Hops is as follows : — After being gathered from the bine, or stalk, the flowers are immediately carried in bags to the kiln, on which they are spread out to the thickness of from six to ten inches all over the surface of the kiln. The fire is then lighted, and kept burning briskly night and day, so long as there are any hops ready to be dried. It is found that a kiln of Mr. Read's construction may be charged once in every twelve hours. After the hops are dried, they are swept off the kiln into a cool well ventilated loft adjoining, and generally attached to it ; this loft being formed over a cart-shed, or some other building open on one or on all sides. Being cooled here for a day or more, or according to convenience, the hops are bagged, or pocketed ; the bag weighing two hundi-ed-weight and a half, and the pocket one hundred-weight and a half ; that is, packed in bags, which are suspended by a hoop from a round opening in the floor, and into each of which a man enters, to consolidate the hops by treading them down. ^^ hen the bag is full, it is released from the hoop, and pulled up, still being retained over the hole, till it is beaten into shape, when it is sewn up, and let down into the shed, whence it is carried to market, or to the store loft, where it may be kept a year or more, if carefully excluded from the air. Hops dried on INIr. Read's kiln have been known to keep four or five years ; but those dried by the common methods, and especially those of Farnham, seldom keep even twelve months, from the imperfect manner in which the process of drying has been performed. There are several excise regulations connected with the drying of hops in Britain, which we think it unnecessary to enter into in a work intended for both hemispheres ; more especially as we anticipate the entire removal of the excise duties, and the substitution of a graduated per-centage or property tax for this and all other government taxes. 1 275. TJte Situation of a hop-oast ought to be airy ; and the external opening to it, for the admission of the air, ought to face that point of the compass from which the wind blows most frequently at that season of the year when hops are being diied. In England, the hop harvest is in the month of September, and the wind, in that month, is generally in the direction of the south-west. When several kilns are built together, and not in a straight line, but so as to form two rows or a group, as in the Design before us, this rule cannot be followed ; but the next best rule is, to have the openings to the fireplaces facing the north-west and south-east, by which means they will catch a part of the current from the south-west as it passes. 1276. The circular form for the kiln has been adopted by Mr. Read, because it contains a gi-eater ai-ea than any other figure with the same quantity of exterior walling; and because both the walls and roof can be made stronger than they can in any rectan- gular form, with fewer materials. Hence, while the circular kilns possess more strength and durability than the rectangular ones, the expense of construction is less. 1277. Details of the Oasts erected at Teston. Fig. 1148 is the ground plan j in which