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.  They both entered with enthusiasm upon the job, and we had many interesting discussions as to improvement, as it proceeded.  Tom G. was a man of great resource, and could always find a way out of every difficulty; he told me, before we began, that he could see the completed building as if actually finished, just as a great sculptor once said how easy it was to produce a statue from a block of marble, for all he had to do was to cut away the superfluous material!

The alterations entailed a new roof from end to end of the old building, and a new floor for the upper part, the length being about 70 and the width about 20 feet.  The old roof was covered mostly with stone-slates—­flakes of limestone from the Cotswolds—­very uneven in size and rough as to surface, and in part with ordinary blue slates.  The latter lie much more closely on the laths, the stone slates allowing the passage of more air between them, and it was interesting to find that while the ancient laths under the stone slates were fairly well preserved, those beneath the blue slates were much decayed, evidently from the fact of the damp in an unheated building remaining longer where the air was excluded, though one would have expected the close-lying blue slates to be the better protection of the two.

Much expense was saved by Tom G.’s economical use of materials; wherever the old oak beams could be used again they were incorporated with the new work.  He never cut sound old or new pieces of timber to waste; almost every scrap came in somewhere, for he worked with his head as well as his hands.

The difference in this respect is very noticeable in different men; an old plumber once told me that he had been employed upon a pump on a neighbouring farm, where the slot in which the handle works was so worn on one side that the bolt which carries the handle had given way, owing to the man, who had used it for years, not keeping it running truly in the centre.  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.  They would probably have been annually in use in the picking season up to the present time had it not been that the low prices ruling latterly have rendered a crop which requires so much labour, knowledge, and supervision, not worth growing.

I hear, however, with much satisfaction, that these old hop-kilns and storerooms have been of great service during the war for drying medicinal herbs, chiefly belladonna and henbane, and that in 1917 the turnover exceeded L6,000.