o42 State Horficultitra! Socictx. 



CIDER MAKING. 



At the meeting- of the Illinois Horticultural Society, H. M. Dunlap 

 described his own process of making vinegar as follows : "I run the 

 cider into casks from the press, then store them in the upper story 'of 

 my cider house. Running them up overhead serves two purposes — it 

 preserves the barrels from the little worms that bore through and let the 

 vinegar run out, as is the case with vinegar stored in sheds on the ground ; 

 also the temperature is very warm in the summer time and correspond- 

 irigly cold in the winter. The cider made in the fall will freeze very 

 nearly solid ; I have about six or eight gallons drawn out of each barrel 

 to make up for the expansion. These barrels are laid on racks, and the 

 freezing process separates the water, which goes to the top, from the 

 strong- cider stock, which goes to the bottom. The demand for cider 

 vinegar has increased on account of the pure- food laws that were recently 

 enacted by the state legislature." — Country Gentleman. 



HISTORY OF THE APPLE. 



(John W. Clark, North Hadley, Mass.) 

 When the apple was first cultivated was, and probably always will 

 be, clouded in mystery. That it was known at a very early date, and is 

 one of the oldest, if not the oldest, of cultivated fruits, is not questioned. 

 Lyell, in his "Antiquity of Man," carries us back 5,000 to 7,000 years 

 into the Age of Stone, and says that "carbonized apples of small size 

 are found in the mud of that period." 



We also have records of sliced apples, cut as if for drying, being- 

 found beneath the ruins of the Lake Dwellers, where they have lain 

 with the implements and utensils of these ancient people for centuries, 

 and by their presence do their part in telling us of these strange people. 

 The home of Pyrus Malus, the source from which our cultivated 

 apple sprang, according to the best authorities, is Western Asia, and it 

 is a fact worth remembering that Western Asia, the cradle of mankind, 

 is also the birthplace of our apple, and has followed man in his wander- 

 ings into nearly every country and clime, and. like him. has reached the 

 highest stage of development in the temperate zone. Of the ffuits known 

 to man the apple has the widest range of adaptation, being found culti- 

 vated in nearly the whole of Europe, Northern Africa, Western Asia. 

 China, Japan, North and South America and Australia. 



