14ft CULTURE AND MANAGEMENT 



larger and lighter parts rise to the surface,, where it 

 remains until the fermentation begins; but the fer- 

 mentation would involve great part of the pulp, both 

 from above and below, into the body of the liquor, 

 and increase the fermentation beyond our control. 

 It must therefore be removed before this effect be 

 produced. Soon after the fermentation begins, the 

 covering on the top of the must cracks and separates, 

 when there is not a moment to be lost before you 

 draw it into your casks, leaving the pulp behind. 

 In this cask it undergoes the first of the fermenta- 

 tion for eight or ten days; but before this most 

 difficult part of the art of making the best cider can 

 be well understood, there are so many points to be 

 considered of, that I have always hesitated to give 

 my opinion of it, from a certainty that the subject 

 would become tedious beyond sufferance. There 

 are, however, a few obvious principles of great im- 

 portance, which may be borne witn. 



" Cider requires a very gentle fermentation, and 

 ought to be confined between forty-four and forty- 

 eight degrees of heat (by Fahrenheit's thermome- 

 ter.) Musts, of all kinds, increase their heat by fer- 

 mentation. Liquors, of all kinds, will not be colder 

 than the air in which they stand. It is easy to 

 comprehend, if these are facts, the impossibility of 

 making good cider, when the medium heat of the 

 day exceeds forty-eight degrees. I say the medium 

 heat of the day, because our best cellars being fifty 

 degrees of heat in the latter end of October, ren- 

 ders them, generally, unfit for fermenting cider, and 

 involves a necessity of having your first fermentation 

 above ground, where the heat of the day will have 

 its effect. Hence the known fact that cider fer- 

 ments most kindly in the shade, on the north side of 

 your buildings, wherever the cool nights of the fall 

 reduce the medium heat of the day below forty- 

 eight degrees. Daring the first fermentation above- 

 mentioned, attention must be given to it, that, iu 



