The Green Alleys Author:Eden Phillpotts Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE HOPS Now were the hop gardens in full splendour of growth — a phase in the story that begins during late winter and culminates with the amb... more »er harvest of the fall. As yet the burr only declared itself, and the points, presently to break into bloom, had not thickened and ended the July pageant of leaf and line. The alleys stretched away above the weald, whose colour shone almost golden under noontide sun; and the earth, in crumbled masses of pale, bright mould, extended down avenues so full of light that the chequer of leaf shadows hardly dimmed their brightness. Above, the regiments of the hops stood massive upon their twin pillars. Each pair of chestnut poles was separated from the next by six feet, but they looked closer. Tight wound the bine to the stake, getting a grip for its aerial leap aloft. The lower, mightier leaves over-lapped each other and shadowed their neighbours; they were three-lobed, and five-lobed, and serrated — the embodiment of adult health and vigour. But here and there spread the yellow dust of sulphur upon them, or the blue stain of wash, to show their splendid prosperity had not been won without pains. Their darkness reflected the sunshine, which spread lightover the leaf and marked the venation. The nerves sprang downward from the mid-rib to the points of the pendant foliage, and lesser nerves branched from them. The master bines clove to the main support, hugged the wood and left the net-work of cocoanut twine, that ran away on every side, to their laterals; but sometimes a main stem deserted the pole and set forth to decorate a swaying rope. Then noble arches spanned the green alleys, and from them every way fell traces, streamers and threads so delicate, that they seemed no more than rays of light trembling upon the green. T...« less