CHAPTER XXI 



THE MICROBE OF CIDER 



NEARLY every farmer has more or less orchard, 

 and makes more or less cider every year. Allow- 

 ing that, in the United States, only one barrel of 

 cider is yearly made to every hundred acres of 

 land cultivated, the yield would be 220,160,000 

 gallons. The real product is no doubt more than 

 twice this amount. In older countries, where the 

 farms are smaller, the product, pro rata the acre- 

 age cultivated, is probably much greater. 



But, as in the case of beer and wine, for all the 

 cider manufactured in the world the world is in- 

 debted to a certain species of microbes. 



Everybody knows that cider is made from the 

 apple. The perfect apple consists of three well de- 

 fined parts. First, the core divided into five 

 cavities containing the seeds. Second, the fleshy 

 or edible part consisting of minute cells filled with 

 juice. Third, the skin surrounding and protect- 

 ing the other portions. It is of course the juice 

 of the cells which is transformed by the microbe 

 into cider. 



Ten bushels of apples will make one barrel of 

 cider. The apples should become thoroughly ripe 

 on the trees before gathered ; they then contain the 



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