Page:Notes on five years' experiments on hop manuring conducted at Golden Green, Hadlow, Tonbridge.djvu/18

16 nitrate of soda per acre), and S (manured with dung, superphosphate, and 6 cwt. nitrate of soda per acre). F, the plot which received chemical fertilisers only, including 10 cwt. of nitrate per acre, was placed by Mr. Chapman at the head of his list for quality; S, the dressing of which included 6 cwt. of nitrate per acre, came second; while X, manured with dung only, without any nitrate, yielding the same weight of hops, came only sixth in value. On the factor's valuation we get very similar results, S and F coming second and third on the list for quality, while X (dung only) came seventh.

In a year of such general abundance of growth, and consequently of such low average prices as have prevailed for all hops, the money differences represented by differences in the grade of quality are, of course, small as compared with what they would be in a year of high prices. Nevertheless, small differences, from the growers' point of view, are in such a year of even greater consequence than in scarcer and dearer years. A difference of 10s. or 15s. a hundredweight in value when hops are only realising 50s. means a great percentage difference in the money to be turned over. Indeed, in a year of large yields, when purchasers are standing off and growers are eager to realise, a difference in quality which in another year would be regarded as slight may make all the difference between a fairly ready market and no market at all.

The following table shows the acreage value of the crop for each of the plots, based upon the actual weight obtained per acre and upon the values relatively assigned to the growths by Mr. Chapman, judging from the brewers' point of view, and also by the hop-factors as representing the