3-046-922 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Hop-Picking in Germany", by Rudolph Hirth, 1872. Engraving of a painting. 'It is well known that a Bavarian will make nothing of swallowing about ten quarts of beer at a bout. Bavaria, indeed, is the beery paradise of Germany...the hopfen grows everywhere wild in the hedges, and the Germans were the first to use it in brewing - i.e., as early as the ninth century...Here, in this clever picture by Herr Rodolph Hirth, we have a scene of hop-picking in Germany. All hands, old and young, are pressed into service, as with us, in order that the hops, when picked clean from leaves and stalks, may be conveyed as soon as possible to the kiln to be dried. But the method differs somewhat: the detached portion of the "bines" are carried for picking under cover of a cottage or farm building. The scene, unlike those to be sometimes witnessed on the Kentish fields, is not grossly debased and indecent. It is true that there is an amorous youth in the picture who is much more attentive to the comely lass at his side, and who even pays more heed to the inevitable pipe than to the work in hand. But there is no great harm in this, except in the eyes of the taskmaster or the jealous girl on the youth's left'. From "Illustrated London News", 1872.