24 OUK COMMON FBUITS. 



or quince. "When made in quantities, time is economized 

 by simply cutting the fruit in pieces and passing the pulp, 

 after cooking, through a sieve, to separate the skins and 

 cores. The fruit is also dried whole, in the form so familiar 

 to us under the name of Normandy Pippins, while in 

 America it is yet more used in the dried state, after having 

 been first pared and cut into quarters ; a wholesale " apple- 

 paring," at which all the neighbours are invited to assist, 

 being one of the regularly looked-forward-to " frolics " of 

 American rural life. The famous Yankee apple-sauce, too, 

 or "apple-butter," as it is often called, so common in 

 farmers' families at every meal, and often manufactured 

 by the barrel in Connecticut, is made by stewing pared 

 and sliced sweet apples in new cyder until they form a 

 soft pulp, while in some parts the unfermented juice of 

 the apples is boiled down to make molasses. 



But there is a still more important use for apples than 

 any that has yet been alluded to, for 



" A various spirit, fresh, delicious, keen, 

 Dwells in their gelid pores, and active points 

 The piercing cyder for the thirsty tongue." 



And it is when it appears as a drink that the fruit reaches 

 its climax of celebrity, and is perhaps more largely con- 

 sumed too than even as food, at least in England; for 

 though cyder was made in Normandy before it was known 

 in our own country, that is the only part of the Conti- 

 nent where it is now a staple article of commerce. It is 

 mentioned by Yirgil in the Qcorgicf, and is thought to 

 have been made in Africa, and introduced by the Cartha- 

 ginians into Biscay, which was long celebrated for its 

 production. It was thence received by the Normans, who 

 in turn taught the manufacture to the English, with whom 

 in the course of time it has found such acceptance, that 

 throughout a large tract of this country it is the ordinary 

 beverage of the whole population ; and the manufacture, 

 though almost entirely in the hands of farmers, unaided 

 by the refinements of machinery, has reached such per- 

 fection that whereas the inferior sort of French cyder 

 requires to be drunk as soon as it is made, and the strongest 

 keeps good but for five or six years, the best Herefordshire 



