Image TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage Tile
Image size: 7680x10752 Scale: 35% - PanoJS3
Page overview thumbnail
Hide article pages Show article pages
  1. Page 7
    Page 7 thumbnail
  2. Page 6
    Page 6 thumbnail

Article text

On this Page 7
convey the pickers to Bushy Park, a
fnrthcr distance of about twelve miles.
.After seeing them fairly started I had
* ea at Mr. 'William Shoobridge's, Valley
Fields, and then in a carriage and pair
drove on to my destination, reaching the
Park about 11 p.m., very cold and some
what fatigued. A beautiful morning
greeted me when I awoke. Some of my
most pleasurable reminiscences will be
connected with my visit to Bushy
Park. The generous hospitality of its
i.ffuer, the -extent of its grounds,
the luxuriance of its growth, the
beauty of its river scenery, the
variety and perfection of its flowers, its
splendid oaks and elms, its fine orchards,
and last though by no means least, its
splendid hop gardens, all combine to
produce one of the finest and most
English-looking homesteads I have seen
in the colonies. Two fine rivers run
through the estate — the Derwent and the
Styx. I asked for the ferryman, but
he was non eat. I however saw the
boat in which the Styx is crossed, and
much to the amusement of our kind
hostess remarked that they were evidently
« n the right side of the river, being as
they were in Paradise. The morning
sifter my arrival the hop-piekora were
fairly set to work, and from a Jiigh knoll
r.t some little distance from the gardens
we commanded a good view of them.
Boys and girls, men and women, were
hard at work denuding the vines
«,f the rich clusters dependent
from them. Everything appeared to
work well— no confusion, no noise, but all
proceeding as with military discipline.
- iood pickers average about 5s. a day, so
that a man with his wife and three or four
children who are at all clever at
the work has a good cheque to take
at the end of the six or eight weeks
which constitute the season. Every
i.'Ubrt is made for the comfort of
the pickers ; substantial thirteen or
{sixteeu-room cottages are built, or are
being built for their accommodation, and
mi alternate days they are supplied gratis
-with fiesh fruits and potatoes with soup.
Keligious services are held on the estate
fvery Sunday. So well are the pickers
cared for during the picking that they
invariablv return to Hobart Town
wonderfully improved in health and
appearance. Notwithstanding the kind
and generous treatment they receive
tiime of them cannot forget their
? ?Id pru.'ks, and every now and
.vain tli'-y are bowled out. For
exanip .*, 3Ir. Shoobridge went one day to
the st.jond tloor of the kiln, and to his
iistoniahment found that they had lighted
;i fire on the icoou'en floor and were about
to roast one of bi3 pigs idvrte, and wheu
challenged said they had just caught the
T..ig, which hud iculked up the ladder, and
they were going to take it down again.
My host amused me with the recital of
j-everal other escapades of a similar
nature. My stay at Bushy Park was
necessarily a short one, but I left it
promising myself another visit to its
fwner and hi3 hop garden.

A VISIT TO A TASMANIAN HOP
GARDEN.

By an Adelajdeax.
m ?

% Having accepted Mr. Shoobridge's in
vitation I started to spend a few days at
Bushy Park. The day was miserably
Cftld and wot., an TOTnnnimr nivsnlf 11 0

well and taking a rug with me I went
on board the steamer at Hobart Town,
which Mr. Shoobridge had chartered to
take up the hop-pickers, and never in my
life did I see such a motley group. I am
sure tliat were we to search through the
worst parts of our city we could not find
another 300 to match them. We have
not the same class in our community;
some of the women had most diabolical
faces, Macbeth's witches were handsome
compared with them, and the remark
was made as the steamer left the
wharf that 'fiobart Town was well quit
of that lot for a couple of months. ' It is
astonishing to see the influence Mr.
Shoobridge and his family have over these
people; they have them under perfect
control, and seldom, if ever do they
become troublesome. At the start of the
season Mr. Shoobridge collects the picker*
together and addresses them, pom ing out ?
their mutual obligations and detailing the
rules to which they must conform if they
are to remain on the ground, for the
slightest infringement of these rules ^
met by immediate dismissal. Amongst
other regulations profane language ia
positively prohibited.
Arrived at New Norfolk, a very
pretty little town on the bank of the river,
about 30 miles from Hobart lown, the
Bteamer discharged her living freight, and
well-horsed wagons were, iu waiting t-|

$