58 CIDER. 



sun and wet weather. This is a miserable practice. 

 The whole mass becomes sour, and if delay ensues 

 in pressing the pumice, fermentation takes place, a 

 small quantity of which juice will spoil a large quan- 

 tity. 



The apples should always hang on the trees until 

 they are fully ripe, and instead of being threshed off, 

 they should be gathered by hand when the weather 

 is dry. They should in no case be bruised, or suffer- 

 ed to become wet. The) should be assorted, and 

 placed in seperate piles, where they should remain 

 from eight to ten or twenty days, to sweat. This pro- 

 cess improves them, and the length of time they 

 should sweat, should be in proportion to the inferior- 

 ity of the apples; those of a hard and crude nature 

 requiring much longer than the best kinds. The ap- 

 ples should be piled where the air will have free ac- 

 cess to them, and should any rot, they should be care- 

 fully picked out and thrown away, as they give a bit- 

 ter disagreeable taste to the cider. 



The apples should, in the next place, be ground, 

 and the pumice spread over the trough to take the air, 

 by which the cider will acquire a fine color and be 

 much improved in flavor. It is asserted by some, 

 that the longer the pumice lies thus exposed to the 

 air the better, provided fermentation does not take 

 place before the operation of pressing is completed. 

 " The following experiment," says a sensible author, 

 " will prove this. Bruise a tart apple on one side, 



