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and in between them. They will then reach the market safely ; but the fruit that 
has been bruised by being poured from one basket to another had better be kept at 
home and added at once to the cider heap. 
In September perry is made, and windfall cider for the workmen’s drinking ; 
and in October the regular ‘‘make” begins, and goes on at intervals until Christ- 
mas, as the apple-heap increases; all sorts of apples being in the heap, as the 
sweet counteracts the sour, and the good the bad ones. But for the making of 
best cider certain sorts are preferred, and those sorts differ with different counties, 
as also the method used; as, while some stick to the old stone mill, others prefer 
the nut-mill or the scratcher. The result in each case, though, is much the same, 
as from good fruit good drink comes, as we find when the cider beads well in the 
glass, and perry is pear-like and sparkling. —SHELSLEY BEAUCHAMP, in The Squire 
for October, 1881. 
THE ORCHARDS OF HEREFORD AND WORCESTER. 
Tue following statements are extracted from a paper by Mr. Baron D. Webster, 
of Newland Court, Great Malvern :— 
“Though differing in many other respects, these two contiguous counties are 
mostly reckoned as one as regards their fruit cultivation. Parts of Gloucester- 
shire, Shropshire, and Warwickshire, which adjoin, are also included in this tract 
of orcharding. 
‘‘Nurserymen are fond of stating in their catalogues that apples do well 
in any soil. No doubt by such assertions they gain more orders, but it is a question 
whether the country has many more apples. Some are bold enough to add that a 
deep friable loam suits them best. No doubt of it; and most other things as well. 
It is quite certain, however, that the most important condition of the soil for the 
apple-tree is depth, and this, in the neighbourhood above referred to, it thoroughly 
enjoys. The formation of the country, too, affords numberless sheltered hills and 
sunny slopes, where fruit trees luxuriate as if in walled gardens. 
“There is no doubt that Worcestershire was enclosed and highly farmed at a 
very early period, and the cultivation of apples and pears must have been ener- 
getically carried on from the first. Herefordshire produces, perhaps, the best 
apples, but very few pears. The latter fruit gives one the best idea of the antiquity 
of this sort of cultivation. The remaining trees in the celebrated Barland Perry 
Orchard at Monksfield Farm, near Malvern, are stated by one writer to be 600 
years old. This is probably an exaggeration, but there are, doubtless, many trees 
scattered over a large area that must be several hundred years old. An apple-tree 
would hardly be of any use to the owner after a hundred years, but the pears above 
referred to are still, many of them, most valuable: The ground, however, seems 
tired of them—and no wonder—and the grafts taken from them do no good. 
“ Few Worcestershire homesteads are without a few of the “‘ Early Jennet ” 
trees, which still bear bountifully, though of an enormous age. This and other 
