Page:VCH Herefordshire 1.djvu/496

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35 o o A HISTORY OF HEREFORDSHIRE added to Marshall's, the discrepancy between them is considerably lessened. To-day the average cost may be set down at ;^35 an acre. Manure. . . ....... Digging or ploughing ........ Cutting ...... Poling, tying, earthing, &c. .....-• Cultivating by nidgeting and digging round and hoeing hills. Stacicing, stripping, &c. . . . . . . • Annual renewal of poles .....•■• Picking, drying, packing, carriage, sampling, sale of an average crop of 7 cwt. an acre ....... Rent, rates, taxes, repairs of kilns,'' and interest on capital Sulphuring ......•••■ Washing ........-• If wirework is used the wear and tear of wire and poles may be set against renewal of poles in pole work. The profits vary, and always have varied greatly, though it is not likely that the very high prices of former times will recur, as foreign imports and hop substitutes will probably prevent this. We have seen the variation in prices in early years ; coming to later times, in 1823 the whole of the old duty paid by the 'Worcester' District, including Herefordshire, was only £^ 35., out of a total duty for England of £26,0^"]. On the other hand, in 1837, it paid a duty of ;^38,73i ; and again, in 1847, only ;^i,47i out of ;^2i6,268. ' Upon the whole,' says an 1 8th-century writer, though many have acquired large estates by hops, their real advantage as an article of cultivation is perhaps questionable. By engrossing the attention of the farmer they withdraw him from slower and more certain sources of wealth. They encourage him to rely too much upon chance for his rent, and to depend upon the hop-bine rather than the honest labour of the plough. To the landlord the cultiva- tion of hops is an evil, defrauding the arable land of its prop2r quantity of manure, and thereby impoverishing his estate. Since these words were written there have doubtless been many who have endorsed them. FRUIT 'This county,' says John Beale writing in 1656, 'is reputed the orchard of England,'^ and in the generality of good husbandry excelleth many other places.' From the greatest person to the poorest cottager in his day all habitations were encompassed with orchards and gardens, and in most places the hedges were enriched with pears and apples. He had not a very high opinion of perry ; ' of these the pears make a weak drink fit for our hindes and is generally refused by our gentry as breeding wind in the stomack.' One of the most famous perrys was then made in the neighbourhood of Bosbury, which, though perry as a rule was ' most pleasing to the female palate,' had many of the masculine qualities of cider, was quick, strong, heavy, and high-coloured, retained its strength two or three summers, and in great vessels in good cellars for many years. This was made from the famous Barland pear. Beale thought the Gennet Moyle made the best cider, even better than the much-commended Red Streak, and if suffered to ripen upon the tree to be yellowish and fragrant and then hoarded in heaps under trees two or three weeks before grinding was the most fragrant of all cider fruit, and gave the liquor a most delicate perfume. The crab was commonly ground for verjuice and some- times hoarded till near December and then mingled with cider or washings of cider to make a ' mordicant ' drink which ' doth well please our day labourers.' Yet one of the most delicate kinds of cider was made from the Bromsbery crab, ' being much like a stomack wine.' About this time, 1656, there was a famous apple tree, ungrafted, growing on old pasture near Ocle Pitchard which ordmarily yielded four hogsheads of 64 gallons without any mixture of water It was supposed to be hundreds of years old, and its growth or decay was so slow that its owner who had watched it for 80 years, had never seen any change in it. ' As for the locality of fruit-growing then, the same writer says, ' about Bromyard a cold air and a shallow, barren soil, yet store of orchards of divers kinds of spicey and savoury apples. About Rosse " Herefs. Orchards a Pattern for All England (ed. 1724), 2. 426