dxb, i read the text as well, in you link on the oasts - i know very little about hops, -the is the bit in Tess of the d'Urbervilles, about hop picking, and i have seen wild hops growing in NY...

Early on, i came across this sentenceThe hop fields are fragrant with the heavy smell of the hop flowers and the bines are so thick with leaves to the point where the poles that support them... and thought it was a typo, since B and V are next to each other on the key board..

but latter in the text there is this,
a kind of foreman, who would as a badge of his rank carry a long pole tipped with a sharp hook which he would use to cut the bines away from the hop-twine that supported themand the word is used again for the third time (and i screwed up copying it) so now i am wondering why Hops vines are called bines?

or is it three typo's? (not likely!)

and on another thought, is the french word for the month we call august an other related word to oast/or its root?


my other obsession