180 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



days, or even a fortnight or three weeks, according 

 to the strength of the juice and the temperature of 

 the season. When the fermentation has ceased, 

 which may he known by the liquor becoming clear, 

 it should be immediately racked into well-scalded 

 and dried casks ; these casks, as before, should 

 not be quite filled, and their bung-holes merely 

 covered. Great attention should be given to pre- 

 vent any recurrence of active fermentation ; upon 

 the least appearance of which, racking must in- 

 stantly be resorted to, until the cider becomes per- 

 manently tranquil. The dregs of the fermenting 

 casks should be filtered through a conical flannel- 

 bag, spread at the mouth and suspended by a 

 hoop. In the operation of racking, the finer the 

 stream the more effectual will it be in checking 

 fermentation ; and this effect will be increased by 

 pouring the li([Uor through a vessel perforated with 

 numerous holes, or affixing the rose of a watering- 

 pot to the vent or tap, thus producing a more com- 

 plete separation and exposure to the air, and con- 

 sequent precipitation of the ferment. Some cider 

 makers cause the cider to run down a board into 

 the receiving vessel, so as to expose it as much as 

 possible to the action of the air. The coolness of 

 the situation of the cider during its fermentation is 

 of great importance ; for at a temperature much 

 above 50 deg. Fahrenheit, the acetous change com- 

 mences, and proceeds simultaneously with the 

 vinous : but below that degree, neither before the 

 cider is tunned, nor after in the open cask, is any 

 acid produced. The object of all this particular 

 management of the cellar is, after obtaining a cer- 

 tain degree of fermentation necessary to produce a 

 sufficient quantity of spirit, to subdue the action 

 of the exciter, the ferment, and thereby to induce 

 that slow and tranquil change which gradually 

 converts the remaining sugar into spirit, but which, 

 in a well-closed cask and a cool cellar, it takes 

 years to accomplish. In the following April the 

 cider is again racked, to get rid of the lees, 

 and the casks are then closely bunged down, 

 and the cider is in a fit state to stow away in the 

 proper keeping-place, or to send out. The racking 

 of cider in the spring should be performed when 

 the air is dry and cool. When perfectly fine the 

 cider is fit for bottling; but Mr. Knight recom- 

 mends keeping it two years before it is bottled. 

 Cider, carefully managed, will retain its sweetness 

 three or four years in the cask, and many years 

 when bottled. The bottles should be laid upon 

 their sides, in order that the corks may swell and 

 prevent the escape of the gas. In bottle, the gas, 

 which at first is yet slowly formed, soon occasions 

 Buch a pressure as to put a stop to any further 

 change, which can proceed only so long as the 

 carbonic acid gas — one of the products of that 



change— is allowed to escape. In tolerably matured 

 cider, the needful pressure for this effect is too 

 feeble to endanger the bursting of the bottles, but 

 is at the same time sufficient to give a great brisk- 

 ness to the cider when the cork is drawn. 



It is not the coldness of our winters that pre- 

 vents us becoming a greater wine-growing country. 

 The low mean temperature of our summers is the 

 great obstacle. The annual mean temperature of 

 the valley of the Rhine is considerably lower than 

 with us ; but then the mean temperature of its 

 summers is much higher. The vine therefore 

 annually ripens its fruit in Germany, whilst it 

 scarcely ever does so with us. In England, as in 

 France and Germany and Italy, it is the late frosts 

 of spring which the owners of orchards and vine- 

 yards dread. They find on the continent that the 

 vineyards which escape the best are those which 

 slope towards the north ; since the sap of these is 

 set in motion much later than those which slope 

 towards the sunny south, and when the heat does 

 set their sap in motion on the northern declivities 

 the season has become settled. The very same 

 remark has been of late years made by the Devon- 

 shire farmer. The cider orchards, which were for- 

 merly confined to the bottom of their fine rich and 

 well-sheltered valleys, are now far more frequently 

 planted well up the hill sides, and in aspects where 

 the trees escape the early sunshine. The apple 

 blossom in such orchards they find often escapes 

 the effects of frosts, which seriously injure that in 

 low-lying orchards. They tell you that it is the 

 cold wet hoar frosts, and the greater dampness of the 

 air in the valleys, which are so much more injurious 

 to the blossoms than that of the hill sides. This 

 year, I learn, will afford very decided instances, in 

 South Devon, of the correctness of these observa- 

 tions. We are sometimes too apt to believe that 

 these late frosts are more injurious to us than to 

 the cultivators of the South of Europe ; but this is 

 an error; for, as Lord Lovelace sometime since re- 

 marked, even within the " cereal zone — that which 

 enjoys greater stability of seasons than those of 

 the vine and olive lands — there are greater vicissi- 

 tudes of heat and moisture than in England. Take, 

 for instance, the occurrence of hoar frosts, so de- 

 structive in their effects on our early garden produce 

 in the spring. The mean number of these at 

 Orange, in the South of France, is 17.7; while 

 at Rome, where they have been known to occur in 

 June, it is G3.S. The buds of vines and mul- 

 berries are destroyed by them as frequently as our 

 peach blossoms in England. In Italy, a district 

 around Otranto is ironically called the " Land 

 of Flowers," since the recurrence of these visita- 

 tions 80 often prevents their being succeeded by 

 fruit. 



