When London families spent their summers picking hops in the countryside
 

When London families spent their summers picking hops in the countryside
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1928

Hop pickers use stilts on a farm at Wateringbury in Kent.

Image: Crouch/Topical Press Agency/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

The flowers of the hop plant have been used in the brewing of beer for centuries. First introduced to the UK from continental Europe in the 16th century by Dutch farmers, hops soon became the most important crop of the Kent area.*

A trailing plant, the hop plant is trained to grow up strings between poles, and tended to by workers on stilts.

The harvesting of hops was highly labor intensive, requiring more workers than the local population could supply. Whole families from the poorer areas of London would migrate to the hop fields of southeast England at harvest time. * Read more...

More about History, Retronaut, England, Agriculture, and Farminghttp://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Mashable/~4/XG8bYRLDUm4