94 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETF. 



Recipe for Improving Cider: — Let the new cider from sour apples 

 (sound and selected fruit is to be preferred) ferment from one week to three 

 weeks, as the weather is warm or cool. When it has attained to lively 

 fermentation, add to each gallon, according to its acidity, from half a pound 

 to two pounds of white crushed sugar, and let the whole ferment until it 

 possesses precisely the taste which it is desired should be permanent. 



In this condition pour out a quart of the cider and add for each gallon, 

 one quarter of an ounce of sulphite of lime, known as an article of manu- 

 facture under the name of anti-chloride of lime. Stir the powder and cider 

 until intimately mixed, and return the emulsion to the fermenting liquid. 

 Agitate briskly and thoroughly for a few moments, and then let the cider 

 settle. The fermentation will cease at once. 



When, after a few days, the cider has become clear, draw off and bottle 

 carefully, or remove the sediment and return to the original vessel. If 

 loosely corked, or kept in a barrel on draught, it will retain its taste as a 

 still cider. If preserved in bottles carefully corked, which is better, it will 

 become a sparkling cider, and may be kept indefinitely long. 



To the President of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society — 



The following question has, within the last few days, been repeatedly 

 addressed to the undersigned : — 



" May not the sugar prescribed in the recipe for improving cider, pub- 

 lished by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, be omitted, and the sul- 

 phite of lime added directly to the new cider ?" 



The reply may seem somewhat circumstantial, but it will avoid unneces- 

 sary details, and be as brief as the question permits. 



The juice of the apple may be regarded as wa,ter containing grape sugar 

 in solution, and albuminous substances in solution and suspension. The 

 other ingredients, including the sources of the peculiar taste and bouquet, 

 need not, for the purposes of this note, be taken into account. 



Simple grape sugar dissolved in water does not ferment. Albuminous 

 matters of fruit, on the contrary, dissolved or suspended in water, ferment 

 spontaneously. But if grape sugar be dissolved in water containing albu- 

 minous matter, the sugar will ferment from contact with the fennenting^ 

 albuminous matters. Cane sugar, under like circumstances, becomes first 

 grape sugar, and then ferments. Starch experiences a like change. The 

 first result of fermentation of the grape sugar is alcohol and carbonic acid. 

 The second result is acetic acid, and requires exposure to the air. 



There are, in the apple, three conceivable cases of relation of albumin- 

 ous matter to sugar. First, when there is just sufficient albuminous matter 

 to convert by fermentation all the sugar into alcohol and carbonic acid ; 

 second, where there is excess of albuminous matter; third, where there is 

 excess of sugar. 



The frst case would yield, after the fermentation was over, simple 

 alcohol. The second would yield alcohol and acetic acid — the latter to the 

 exclusion of the former in some proportion to the excess of albuminous 

 matter. The third would yield a mixture of sugar and alcohol. 



