Note E339 — 53.

"Of late yeares also we haue found and taken vp a great trade in planting of hops, whereof our moorie hitherto and vnprofitable grounds doo yeeld such plentie and increase that there are few farmers or occupiers in the countrie, which haue not gardens and hops growing of their owne, and those farre better than doo come from Flanders vnto vs. Certes the corruptions vsed by the Flemings, and forgerie dailie practised in this kind of ware, gaue vs occasion to plant them here at home; so that now we may spare and send manie ouer vnto them. And this I know by experience that some one man by conuersion of his moorie grounds into hopyards, wherof before he had no commoditie, dooth raise yearelie by so little as twelue acres in compasse two hundred markes; all charges borne toward the maintenance of his familie. Which Industrie God continue! Though some secret freends of Flemings let not to exclaime against this commoditie, as a spoile of wood, by reason of the poles, which neuerthelesse after three yeares doo also come to the fire, and spare their other fewell."—Harrison, Descript. of Eng., 1587, p. 206. "Lowe and spungie grounds trenched is good for hopps, as Suffolke, Essex, and Surrie, and other places doe find to their profit."—Norden, p. 206. Evelyn, Sylva, pp. 201, 469, ed. Hunter, asserts that there was a petition against them temp. Henry VI., but no record of it appears on the rolls of Parliament. Brewing with hops was not introduced here till the reign of King Henry VIII. (Stow, Hist. p. 1038.) Bere, however, is mentioned in 1504. (Leland, Coll. vi. p. 30, and see Dr. Percy on Northumberland Book, p. 414.)—Pegge's Forme of Cury, ed. 1780, p. xxiii. See a long note in Prompt. Parv., s.v. Hoppe; and also "Pharmacographia," p. 496.