26 OUR COMMON FETJITS. 



the total absence in the former of tartaric acid, the pecu- 

 liar flavour and sharpness of the apple being due to an- 

 other constituent, which, though present in some other 

 fruits also, yet so specially preponderates in the mains 

 tribe as to have thence taken the name of malic acid. In 

 Normandy sometimes the different properties of the fruits 

 are in some measure combined by making the cyder in 

 vintage-time, and then pouring it on the refuse grapes, 

 suffering the whole to ferment again, when the resulting 

 liquor becomes of the colour of wine, and is considered 

 more wholesome than pure cyder, while the flavour is not 

 disagreeable, to some at least, for in few things are tastes 

 found to vary more than in respect to different sorts of 

 cyder ; and while the sweet beverage approved in London 

 or Paris would find little favour in Devonshire or Nor- 

 mandy, the keen and somewhat harsh draught which 

 gratifies the rural consumer would be utterly detestable 

 to a metropolitan palate. The price, too, varies consider- 

 ably, for while a hogshead of cyder is generally valued at 

 from 2 to 5, llhind asserts that a first-rate quality has 

 sometimes been sold as high as 20 per hogshead direct 

 from the press, a cost equal to that of many good wines. 

 There is little chance, however, of the juice of the apple 

 ever becoming a general substitute for the juice of the 

 grape ; and in these days of revised tariffs and abolished 

 duties, when even a " French invasion" is welcomed while 

 the invaders take the form of bottles of claret, and so 

 much benefit to our population is hoped for from the in- 

 troduction of the produce of foreign vineyards to replace 

 native drinks, it is curious to read how 17th-century en- 

 thusiasm once prognosticated that 



" Where'er the British spread 

 Triumphant banners, or their fame has reached 

 Diffusive to the utmost bounds of this 

 Wide universe, Silurian cyder, borne, 

 Shall please all tastes and triumph o'er the vine." 



The apple being at once so common and so important a 

 fruit, it is not surprising that it should have occupied a 

 place both in the sports and the superstitions of our fore- 

 fathers. It was once a not uncommon pastime in Eng- 



