76 THE ORCHARD IN ITS COMMERCIAL ASPECT. 



" six hogshatts of Red Strike Sider, and never tasted them at all, but 

 gave you a noate under my hand to pay ^25 15s. od. for them." 

 The cider turned out badly, and he demands a repayment. At the 

 end of the letter, the writer adds, " I bought 50 hogshatts last 

 yeare at Dimmock and they are as rich as new Canary. I cannot 

 sell bad Sider," &c., &c. This letter gives the price of the famous 

 Redstreak Cider in the height of its renown. 



The Household Accounts of the Right Hon. James, 3rd Lord 

 Viscount Scudamore, also at Holme Lacy, show that in the years 

 1703 and 1704 apples were bought at 2s. 3d. the bushel, and in a 

 bill of the time, but without date, a hogshead of Red Streak Cider 

 was bought for los. od. ; hogsheads of cider were bought from 

 Amberley and Harden for ^\ 2s. 6d. each ; a hogshead of Golden 

 Pippin Cider from Rotherwas cost ^\ 5s. od. It may be 

 mentioned also, that the price of labour for cooperage, cider-making, 

 grafting, &c., set down in these accounts is is. per day. 



Batty Langley, who wrote at the beginning of the i8th 

 Century (17 13), mentions that the Devonshire Royal Wilding Cider 

 (a variety that seems to have been lost at the present time), " would 

 fetch five guineas per hogshead, while common cider goeth for 

 20s." Mr. Hugh Stafford, of Pynes (1753), "has known five 

 guineas refused for a hogshead of cyder from this apple, whilst 

 common cyder sells for 20s., and South Hams from 20s. to 30s." 



In Herefordshire, celebrated varieties seem always to have 

 commanded a market, when inferior ones failed to do so. Marshall 

 (1796) mentions Hagloe Crab and Stire Cider as worth at the press 

 from ;^5 to £,\^ the hogshead, but he adds that the ordinary 

 price of Cider "on a par of years" is 25s. per hogshead. In 1720 

 bottled cider fetched 6d. a bottle, a sum equivalent at the present 

 time to about 3s. In 1825 Mr. John Bosley, of Holmer, (the Mr, 

 John Bosley of the period), sold 12 hogsheads of cider, to be 

 delivered in London, at the price of ;^i2 12s. the hogshead. The 

 cider was made from the Redstreak^ Cowarne Red and Royal Wild- 

 ing apples, which were grown on Holmer Bank, within a mile and 

 a half of the City of Hereford. The twelfth hogshead he had to 

 buy from the then Mr. Davies, of Venn's Green, Marden. 



