APPLE HEAPS. .41 



Apple heaps on the open ground may be from one to two feet 

 in thickness, without fear of the fruit becoming heated, but on a dry 

 floor, the depth should not exceed one foot. The heaps should 

 most certainly be protected from changes of weather, and if placed 

 in rows this may readily be done by thatched hurdles resting on a 

 pole running above the heap. These may be easily moved or 

 replaced, and if frost should set in be covered with clothes or 

 tarpauling. The sun, by causing a partial fermentation, is injurious 

 to the apple heaps, but still more is the rain. If this is doubted, let 

 a whole and sound Apple be placed in a glass of clear water and 

 allowed to remain there for seven or eight hours. In this short 

 time, the water will have taken a rosy hue, and the sweet taste of 

 the Apple, whilst the Apple itself will have lost much of its flavour. 

 The explanation is, that by the natural laws always in operation, 

 between fluids of different density, the law of endosmore and 

 exosmore, the water has passed into the Apple, and juice has passed 

 out into the water, greatly to the injury of the fruit. Frost is also 

 very injurious to fruit, for when it has once been frozen, it will never 

 ferment properly. A French chemist found the loss to be about 

 one and a half per cent, of alcohol from the juice of fruit that had 

 been frozen. 



It is most desirable therefore that fruit should be protected, 

 but it is seldom done. During the Autumn and Winter of the 

 years 1878-9, and 1879-80, though fruit was scarce, rains frequent, 

 and frost severe, it was a rare circumstance to see the Apple heap 

 protected. 



Cider makers in all ages have agreed, that the fruit must be 

 used in its best condition to make good Cider. As it is put in the 

 baskets at the heap, to be carried to the mill, all the bad Apples 

 should be rejected. Unripe fruit contains but little sugar, or 

 flavour ; heated, or frost bitten fruit will not ferment properly ; and 

 bruised and rotten fruit introduce elements of injurious fermen- 

 tation. All watery or inferior fruit should be ground by itself, since 

 it must of necessity make inferior liquor. To use all the fruit 

 together, ripe and unripe, good and bad, is fatal to the production 

 of superior Cider. The quaint remark of Worlidge on this careless 



