27 



nical work seen was that of the Toddington Orchard Company at Lord 

 Sudley's place in Gloucestershire. 



Though there is much small fruit g-rown in K<^ut, one of the famous 

 fruit counties of England, very few orchards of any note were found, 

 and cider making is almost unknown. . There are, however, in the 

 county good, strong, retentive loam soils, which carry abundance of 

 flint nodules and overlie chalk formations, as in the cider districts of 

 France. 



In England, as in Germany, very little attention has been given to 

 the development of cider fruits as such, though in the former there 

 are numerous good varieties to start from. The ])ulk of the product 

 is made from the refuse of those varieties Avhich are grown for table 

 and culinary uses. Yet distinctly cider apples are constanth' met with, 

 and a few cider varieties have recently been imported from Normandy 

 and are gaining in favor. 



No definite statistics are available as to the production of cidei- in 

 England, l)ut Hon. C. AV. Radcliffe Cooke, in a recent article in the 

 Nineteenth Century, draws the conclusion that the total annual prod- 

 uct is not less than 100.000,000 gallons, having a maximum value of 

 £3,000,000 sterling, (nearly $15,000,000)." 



CIDER APPLES. 



It is doubtless correct to say that there are few distinctly cider 

 fruits grown in the United States at the present time. Formerlv 

 this class of apples received more attention. Scions of European 

 cider apples have ])een distril)uted of late years by the L'. S. Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, l)ut there are as j^et no orchards of apples or 

 pears grown .distinctly for the manufacture of cider and perry known 

 to the writer. In this regard the United States is at present in 

 pretty nuich the same category as Germany. England is somewhat 

 better oH', as one tinds there a few distinctly cider ap})les and i)erry 

 pears in cultivation. France has, however, made long strides in this 

 direction, as already noted. 



It is of prime importance to consider heiv what constitutes a cider 

 fruit, and compare the products of several foreign countries w itli that 

 of our own in this regard. 



There can be no question that the making of cider by the landed 

 proprietors and peasants of P^-ance for many centuries from the seed- 

 lino-s of Normandv. Brittanv. and Picardv mav be credited with tix- 

 ing the attention of the more critical students and cultivators of recent 

 years upon the best characteristics of the French cider fruits. In 

 these ancient seedling orchards and their descendants have been deter- 

 mined empirically the qualities which distinguish cider fruits (pommes 

 a cidre) from table fruits (pommes a couteau) in France. 



(I Nineteenth Century, August, 1901, p. 276. 



