United States or South Korea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The pair have not long gone down the narrow stairs when a waggon stops outside in the lane, and up comes the carter to speak with the 'drier' the giant trampling round in the pocket and to see how the hops 'be getting on. In five minutes another waggoner looks in, then a couple of ploughboys, next a higgler passing by; no one walks or rides or drives past the hop-kiln without calling to see how things are going on.
Here, at the edge of the arable strip, a building divided into two poor cottages proved to have been originally somebody's little hop-kiln; there, on a warm slope given over to the pleasure-garden of some "resident" like myself, a former villager used to grow enough wheat to keep him in flour half the winter; and there again, down a narrow by-way gone ruinous from long neglect, Master So-and-so, whose children to-day go in fear of the workhouse, was wont to drive his little waggon and pair of horses.
The immense hearths which were once necessary for burning wood are now occupied with 'duck's-nest' grates, so called from the bars forming a sort of nest. In one of the hamlets the women touched their hats to us. Not far from the hop-kiln I found a place where charcoal-burning was carried on.
I visited the old Alton farm, and obtained all particulars of the latest kind of hop-kiln in the neighbourhood from the inventor, and instructed him to prepare plans and specifications for the conversion of an old malthouse close to the Manor. I contracted with Tom G. for all the carpenter's work, and with an excellent stonemason or bricklayer for that belonging to his department.
He called the man's attention to the cause of the damage, and, being a sententious old fellow, asked him why he didn't think what he was doing. The answer was, "I'm not paid to think." The hop-kiln was a great success, and later, with the same workmen, I added two more, as my hopyards extended, on exactly the same lines.
Word Of The Day