766 THE AMERICAN FARMER. 



To avoid this, before shaking the trees, it is well to lay coarse cloths or straw under them. 

 After being gathered, the apples may lie in heaps upon the ground, or in sheds until per 

 fectly ripened, but not sufficiently long to become decayed. 



When ready for grinding, all the immature and rotten fruit should be rejected, and the 

 remainder ground to a uniform mass. The pulp may remain with the juice in it a longer 

 or shorter time, according as a lighter or darker color is required in the cider. The time 



NATIONAL FARMER S CIDER MILL. 



for allowing it to stand in the vat varies from twenty-four to forty-eight hours, and some 

 times even longer, if the weather is cool, the color being heightened and the saccharine prin 

 ciple being increased by a little delay. The liquid should be pressed out (without wetting 

 the straw) and strained through hair-cloth or sieves, into clean, sound casks that are per 

 fectly sweet. The casks should then be placed in a cool cellar. Fermentation will com 

 mence in a few hours; in order to permit this to continue, the bung should be left out, and as 

 the froth and pomace work out of the opening, the cask should be filled every day with 

 cider of the same pressing kept for this purpose. In two or three weeks, according to 

 the temperature, this rising of pomace, which is the fruit fermentation, will cease. The 

 bung may now be put in loosely for a day or two, after which it should be driven in tight. 

 The cider will then be clear, and should be drawn off and put in a clean barrel or cask. 



In this state, there is danger of the fermentation proceeding too far, and for this reason 

 it should be watched. If it remains quiet, it may stand for some time before bottling, fre. 

 quently until March or April. At this stage of fermentation, a gill of finely-pulverized char- 



