picking hops early?

Ok so here's the deal: a friend of mine has a large amount of hops that his family is going to tear out of the ground this week. They have been there for over 100 years and there are a lot of cones on them.
Apperantly, the root balls take up the size of wine keg. What i need to know is if it's worth my time to pick the hops early and also considering the size and age of these hops could they be transplanted this time of year and survive?
I think they're fugels and it would be a shame to just let them all be burned, they have done that to half of them aready.
Any advice would be great thanks.

They could EASILY survive the transplant, you could probably split many plants off of a rootball that size.

Yeah, take all the rhizomes and give them away or sell them maybe??

So what about picking early there full cones there just not brown on the tips
Would it be a wast of time or sould i maby pick 10lb or so and see what i get?

Don't know really. Why the rush to pull them? Probably be ready in a few weeks and that is a lot of hops.

Go ahead and pick them. If they are Fuggles, it's close to time anyway. In fact, almost all of the really old hop varieties are early maturing.

You could transplant the whole root ball, but you'd probably be better off cutting it apart. A 3-4 pound ball will give you great results. You could bury chunks and sell them in the Spring.