326 State Horticultural Society. 



and later watch the expanding bud and the opening flower and inhale 

 its delicious fragrance, and still later, hear the fascinating click of the 

 machines in the dry house and listen to the merry songs of the boys 

 and girls, than to occupy any of the chief political places in this country 

 or the tottering thrones of the old world. 



CIDER MAKING. 



(Jesse S. Butterfield, Lees Summit, Mo.) 



Cider making is an important and interesting subject, and. to me 

 it has been a hobby. But like many other horticultural subjects, the 

 more we learn, the more we find we do not know so much. 



Cider making on a small scale, where the fruit grower can get up 

 the wind-fall apples and make them into cider and sell it out at retail, is 

 one thing, and from a purely commercial standpoint it is a different pro- 

 position. The fruit grower can usually gather up enough barrels, kegs and 

 jugs to hold what cider he might make, and if it is necessary for him 

 to buy a barrel or two he can buy a few whiskey barrels locally at $1.00 

 or $1.25 apiece, but on a large scale the question of labor is merely a 

 matter of dollars and cents, and at the season of the year when this 

 labor is necessary it is usually more dollars than sense, and the ques- 

 tion of barrels and tanks is considerable. One or two good days steady 

 run in a commercial cider plant will fill a car-load of empty barrels, and 

 it will fill tanks in proportion to their size. 



The cider business has been regarded as something of a secret, and 

 would lead one to believe that there is a key that will unlock the door 

 to success, but my experience has been that each success has been at- 

 tained in a different way, and the demand for cider and cider products 

 is in nearly every case original. 



I have learned, or at least resolved not to monkey with cider (if 

 you will excuse the expression). The idea intended to be conveyed is 

 not to attempt to preserve cider by means of any chemicals or acids. Cider 

 in its different stages represents a great variation of chemical propor- 

 tions. Cider made early in the season is vastly different from cider 

 made late in the season. There is a radical difference in the different 

 varieties of apples ; there is a marked dift'erence in the condition of the 

 apples, that is, where wind-falls have lain on the ground for a consid- 

 erable length of time, as compared with wind-falls fresh from the trees, 

 and the only way that cider could be successfully treated so as to pre- 



