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ture fermentation; and he must not delay turning it over, thereby to expose the middle of the mass to the influence of the atmosphere.

In order to press the fruit, or pommage as it is now called, it is folded up in pieces of haircloth, or placed between layers of clean, sweet straw or reed, and piled up in a square frame or mould: the press is then pulled down and squeezes out the juice, forming the matter into thin and almost dry cakes. Care ought to be taken to keep the straw, reed, or hair-cloths sweet, or the ill effects of their acidity will be communicated to the cyder. The first runnings come off foul and muddy, but the last, particularly in perry, will be as clear and fine as if filtered through paper. The refuse is generally thrown away as useless, or, when dry, used as fuel; if it has not been thoroughly squeezed, the pigs will sometimes eat it; and some people grind it a second time with water, and press it for an inferior liquor for family use. As long as a drop can be drawn, Mr. Marshall recommends to continue the pressure. Even breaking the cakes of the refuse with the hands only, he says, gives the press fresh power over it: regrinding them has a still greater effect in this state of the materials, the mill gains a degree of power over the more rigid parts of the fruit, which in the first grinding it could not reach. The most eligible management in this stage of the process appears to be this: grind one pressful a-day; press, and regrind the residuum in the evening; infuse the reduced matter all night among part of the first runnings, and in the morning repress while the next pressful is grinding.

III. Of fermentation and bottling.—In the fermentation of the liquor, the common practice is to have it put into casks or hogsheads, immediately from the press, and to fill them quite full; when the casks are put into airy sheds, where the warmth differs little from the open atmosphere. They are sometimes even exposed to the open air without any covering but a piece of tile or flat stone, propped up over the bung-hole to carry off the rain. It would seem, from Mr. Marshall's account, that the time with cyder, when the fermentation begins, is quite uncertain, in general varying from one day to a month after it is tunned; though liquor taken immediately from the press, if much agitated, will sometimes pass directly into a state of fermentation. If the commencement of the fermentation is uncertain, its continuance is no less so; liquors that have been agitated will frequently go through it in one day; but otherwise, when allowed to rest, it will take from two to six days. The appearance of the liquor also varies according to the ripeness of the fruit: if the fruit has been properly matured, a thick scun is generally thrown up, resembling that of malt liquor. After the liquor has remained some time in the fermenting vessels it is racked off from the lees, and put into fresh casks. But as a fresh fermentation frequently takes place after racking, when this becomes violent, the liquor must be racked again; and sometimes, before the fermentation is checked, the racking must be repeated five or six times; but when there is only a small degree of fermentation, called fretting, the liquor is suffered to remain in the same cask; this degree,

however, is also very undetermined. The best informed cyder-makers are said to repeat the rackings until the liquor appears quiet or nearly so; and when this cannot be accomplished by the ordinary methods of fermentation, they have recourse to fumigating the casks with sulphur, which is called stooming or stumming. For this purpose a match made of thick linen cloth, about ten inches long and an inch broad, well coated with brimstone for about three-fourths of its length, is lighted and hung in at the bunghole of the cask (which has been previously well seasoned, and every other vent stopped), and, while the match burns briskly, the bung is driven in, keeping the uncoated end of the match by its side. The match thus suspended, burns as long as the air contained in the cask will supply the fire; and when it dies the bung is taken out with the remnant of the match, after which the cask is allowed to remain two or three hours, more or less, according to the degree of power the sulphur ought to have, before it is filled with liquor. A smell of the sulphureous acid is thus communicated to the liquor, but it goes off in a short time. Mr. Crocker says, when the fermentation ceases, and the liquor appears tolerably clear to the eye, it has also a piquant vinous sharpness upon the tongue, and if in this state the least hissing noise be heard in the fermenting liquor, the room is too warm, and atmospheric air must be let in at the doors and windows.

Now,' he continues, is the critical moment, which the cyderist must not lose sight of; for if he would have a strong, generous, and pleasant liquor, all further sensible fermentation must be stopped. This is best done by racking off the pure part into open vessels, which must be placed in a more cool situation for a day or two; after which it may again be barrelled, and placed in some moderately cool situation for the winter.'

It is advisable in racking, that the stream from the racking-cock be small, and that the receivingtub be but a small depth below the cock, lest, by exciting a violent motion of the parts of the liquor, another fermentation, be brought up The feculence of the cyder may be strained through a filtering-bag, and placed among the second-rate cyders, but it must not be returned to the liquor designed for prime cyder.

It is observed by Mr. Knight, that 'after the fermentation has ceased, and the liquor is become clear and bright, it should instantly be drawn off, and not suffered on any account again to mingle with its lees; for these possess much the same properties as yeast, and would inevitably bring on a second fermentation. The best criterion to judge of the proper moment to rack off will be, be says, the brightness of the liquor; and this is always attended with external marks, which serve as guides to the cyder-maker. The discharge of fixed air, which always attends the progress of fermentation, has entirely ceased; and a thick crust, formed of fragments of the reduced pulp raised by the buoyant air it contains, is collected on the surface. The clear liquor being drawn off into another cask, the lees are put, he says, into small bags, similar to those used for jellies, being made, as noticed above; through these, whatever liquor the lees contain gradually

filtrates, becoming perfectly bright; and it is then returned to that in the cask, in which it has the effect, in some measure, of preventing a second fermentation, as already hinted. It appears, he says, to have undergone a considerable change in the, process of filtration. The color is remarkably deep, its taste harsh and flat, and it has a strong tendency to become acetous; probably by having given out fixed, and absorbed vital air. Should it become acetous, which it will frequently do in forty-eight hours, it must not on any account, he says, be put into the cask. If however, the cyder, after being racked off, remains bright and quiet, nothing more is to be done to it till the succeeding spring; but if a scum collects on the surface, it must immediately be racked off into another cask; as this would produce bad effects if suffered to sink. If a disposition to ferment with violence again appears, it will be necessary, he thinks, to rack off from one cask to another, as often as a hissing noise is heard. The strength of cyder is much reduced, he says, as noticed above, by being frequently racked off; but this, he supposes, arises only from a large portion of sugar remaining unchanged, which adds to the sweetness, at the expense of the other quality. The juice of the fruits which produce very strong cyders, often remains muddy during the whole winter, and much attention must frequently be paid, to prevent an excess of fermentation.'

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"The casks into which the liquor is put, whenever racked off, should always have been thoroughly scalded, and dried again; and each should want several gallons of being full, to expose a larger surface to the air of the atmosphere.' But,' he adds, should the cydermaker neglect the above precautions, the inevitable consequence will be this: another fermentation will quickly succeed, and convert the fine vincus liquor he was possessed of into a sort of vinegar; and all the art he is master of will never restore it to its former richness and purity.'

He suggests, however, the following correctives: A bottle of French brandy, half a gallon of spirit extracted from the lees of cyder, or a pail full of old cyder, poured into the hogshead soon after the acetous fermentation is begun; but no wonder, continues he, if all these should fail, if the cyder be still continued in a close warm cellar. To give effect to either, it is necessary that the liquor be as much exposed to a cooler air as conveniently may be, and that for a considerable length of time. By such means it is possible fermentation may, in a great measure, be repressed and if a cask of prime cyder cannot from thence be obtained, a cask of tolerable second-rate kind may. These remedies are innocent; but if the farmer or cyder-merchant attempt to cover the accident, occasioned by negligence or inattention, by applying any preparation of lead, let him reflect that he is about to commit an absolute and unqualified murder on those whose lot it may be to drink his poisonous draught. Such means should, therefore, on no account be ever had recourse to.'

The time of bottling depends greatly on the quality of the liquors themselves: good cyder can seldom be bottled with propriety until a year old, and sometimes not till two years. It is

stated by the writer just mentioned, that in the month of April the cyder, in general, will be in a fit state for this operation; but that the critical time for this process is, when the liquor has acquired in the cask its highest degree of perfection: then, when the weather] is fair, the baroineter high, and the wind in some northerly point, let the bottles be filled, setting them by uncorked until the morning; then let the corks be driven very tightly into the necks of the bottles, tied down with small strong twine or wire, and well secured with melted rosin, or other material of the same nature.

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Mr. Knight thinks, that cyders which have been made from good fruits, and have been properly manufactured, will retain a considerable portion of sweetness, in the cask, to the end of three or four years; but that the saccharine part, on which alone their sweetness depends, gradually disappears, probably by a decomposition and discharge of fixed air, similar to that which takes place in the earlier stages of their fermentation.

In our plate we give a perspective view of the machinery of the common cyderist, viz., the mill-house, mill, press, vat, and cask, with their appurtenances. A mill-house on an orchardfarm, is as necessary, Mr. Marshall observes, as a barn. It is generally one end of an out-building; or perhaps, an open shed, under which straw or small implements are occasionally laid up. The smallest dimensions, to render it any way convenient, are twenty-four feet by twenty; a floor thrown over it, at seven feet high; a door in the middle of the front, and a window opposite; with the mill on one side, the press on the other side of the window; as much room being left in front, towards the door, for fruit and utensils, as the nature of the mill and the press will allow. A B, the bottom or lower beam of the press; CD, the upper beam; 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, the uprights; 4, 4, e, e, spurs; Z, 2, 12, braces or cross-pieces; a, b, capitals; X, blocks; g, the screw; E, the back, or receiver; F, the cheese or cake of pommage, placed on G, the stage or basin; 10, 10, beams that support the pieces of which the basin is composed; 11, perpendicular pieces for supporting these beams; H, the buckler

PQR is the circular trough of the applemill; TL V, compartments or divisions for different sorts of apples; M, the mill-stone; LM, axis of the mill-stone; N, the spring-tree bar. The apple-mill does not differ essentially from that of a common tanner's mill for grinding bark; and consists of a mill-stone from two feet and a half to four and a half in diameter, running on its edge in a circular stone trough, from nine to twelve inches in thickness, and from one to two tons in weight: the bottom of the trough in which the stone runs is somewhat wider than the thickness of the stone itself; the inner side of the groove rises perpendicularly, but the outer is levelled in such a manner as to make the top of the trough six or eight inches wider than the bottom, by which means there is room for the stone to run freely, and likewise for putting in the fruit, and stirring it up while grinding. The bed of a middle sized mill is about nine feet, some ten, and some twelve, the whole being composed of two, three, or four stones, bound

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together with cramps of iron, and finished after being cramped in this manner. The best stones are found in the forest of Dean, generally a dark reddish gritstone, not calcareous; for if the stone was of a calcareous quality, the acid juice of the fruit would act upon it and spoil the liquor; a clean-grained grindstone grit is the fittest for the purpose. The runner is moved by means of an axle passing through the centre with a long arm reaching without the bed of the mill, for a horse to draw by; on the other side is a shorter arm, passing through the centre of the stone. An iron bolt, with a large head, passes through an eye in the lower part of the swivel, on which the stone turns into the end of the inner arm of the axis; and thus the double motion of it is obtained, and the stone kept perfectly upright. There ought also to be fixed on the inner arm of the axis, about a foot from the runner, a cogged wheel, working in a circle of cogs fixed upon the bed of the mill; these not only prevent the runner from sliding, which it is apt to do, when the mill is full; but likewise make the work more easy for the horse.

The bottom of the press ought to be made entirely of wood or of stone; the practice of covering it with lead being now well known to be pernicious. A few inches within its outer edges a channel is cut to catch the liquor as it is expressed, and convey it to a lip formed by a projection on that side of the bed opposite the mill; having under it a stone trough or wooden vessel, sunk within the ground, when the bed is fixed low to receive it. The press is worked with levers of different lengths, first a short, and then a longer one, both worked by the hand; and afterwards a bar, eight or nine feet in length, worked by a windlass. Mr. Marshall computes the expense of fitting up a mill-house at about £20 or £25, or on a small scale at £10 or £15, but if the stone has to be brought from a distance, the carriage will make a difference. "Where iron-mills have been tried, this meta! has been found to be soluble in the acid of apples, to which it communicates a brown color, and an unpleasant taste. No combination has been ascertained to take place between this acid and lead; but as the calx of this metal readily dissolves in, and communicates an extremely poisonous quality to, the acetous juice of the apple, it should never be suffered to come into contact with the fruit or liquor.' Knight on the Apple and Pear.

Fig. 2 is a plain and still more common applemill, used in Devonshire.

Fig. 3 is a cyder-mill in use in the south of France, worked on a circular platform of boards, and, instead of stone, the wheel or conical roller is of cast-iron. The fruit is thinly spread over the platform, and the roller moved round by one man or woman. From the rollers covering more breadth than the narrow wheels in use in England, more fruit is crushed in a short time by this sort of mill.

Another and very convenient cyder-mill is shown in fig. 4, and is made of two toothed or indented wooden cylinders of about nine inches in diameter, each being enclosed in the manner of other mills, having a feeder at the top; and VOL. VII

being made so as to be turned by the hand The cylinders are so arranged as to be capable of being removed to a greater or less distance from each other, and thus the business advances in a regular progressive manner, from the first cutting of the fruit until the cylinders are brought so close together that a kernel cannot pass without being bruised; if a second pair of finer toothed cylinders be made to work under these, the pulp will be brought into a perfect state of fineness. It is with difficulty that the same degree of fineness can be effected by the horsemill.

A hand-mill, where cyder is only made for. private use, sometimes consists of a pair of fluted rollers working into each other. They are of cast-iron, hollow, about nine inches diameter, with flutes or teeth, about an inch wide, and nearly as much deep two men work them by hand against each other. The fruit passes between them twice; the rollers being first set wide, to break it into fragments, and afterwards closer to reduce the fragments and the seeds.

Cyder-vats are vessels for receiving the pommage, or the cyder before it is racked off into the cask. They should be made of wood, as, where lead is employed, it is liable to be corroded by the acid. Of the casks we have already spoken.

Mr. Crocker observes that, in the districts of Hereford and Worcester, the following are considered as the best liquor fruits: the bennet apple, captain Nurse's kernel, Elton's yellow, Normandy apple, and the yellow or forest stire. And that, in the county of Somerset, the Jersey, the white sour, the margill, vallis apple, barn'sdoor, crab red-streak, Du-ann, Jack Every, coccagee, Clark's primo, Buckland, Pit crab, Slater's pearmain, Slater's No. 19, Slater's No. 20, Slater's No. 21, castle pippin, saw-pit, and the pomme apis, are supposed most valuable. But that in Devonshire, the most esteemed fruits are; the Seaverton red-streak, the sweet broady, the lemon bitter sweet, josey, Orcheton pippin, wine apple, marygold spice-apple, Ludbrook redstreak, green Cornish, the butter-box, red Cornish, broad-nosed pippin, cat's head, brandyapple, Pine's red-streak, winter red, sweet pomme roi, and the Bickley red-streak. shall mentions the stire-apple, hagloe crab, the golden pippin, the old red-streak, and the woodcock, as favorite old cyder fruits, now on the decline. It was during the reign of Charles I. that the plantations of Herefordshire acquired the peculiar eminence which they yet retain, when by the spirited exertions of lord Scudamore, and other gentlemen of the county, Herefordshire became, in a manner, one entire orchard.' The principal markets for the fruit liquors of this county, are those of London and Bristol, whence great quantities are sent to Ireland, to the East and West Indies, and to other foreign markets, in bottles. The price of the common cyder is generally fixed once a year by a meeting of the dealers at Hereford fair, on the 20th of October.

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CYDER SPIRIT, is a spirituous liquor drawn from cyder by distillation, in the same manner as brandy from wine. Its flavor is not agres

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