The owners perforce must put up with less of the nicer things of life, the pickers with less grub, of which, in the best of times, they never get enough.

For weary weeks headlines like the following have appeared in the London papers.- TRAMPS PLENTIFUL, BUT THE HOPS ARE FEW AND NOT YET READY.
Then there have been numberless paragraphs like this:- From the neighbourhood of the hop fields comes news of a distressing nature.

The bright outburst of the last two days has sent many hundreds of hoppers into Kent, who will have to wait till the fields are ready for them.

At Dover the number of vagrants in the workhouse is treble the number there last year at this time, and in other towns the lateness of the season is responsible for a large increase in the number of casuals.
To cap their wretchedness, when at last the picking had begun, hops and hoppers were well-nigh swept away by a frightful storm of wind, rain, and hail.

The hops were stripped clean from the poles and pounded into the earth, while the hoppers, seeking shelter from the stinging hail, were close to drowning in their huts and camps on the low-lying ground.