174 CULTURE AND MANAGEMENT 



"Our cider is the worst article we produce. Our 

 hay, potatoes, grain, and fruit, do not depend on 

 ourselves. They are the gifts of God, the produc- 

 tions of his goodness, which we call nature. Our 

 butter, cheese, and cider are partially the result of 

 our own industry. The two former are often in- 

 dilferent enough, yet, with some important excep- 

 tions, they are in a state of improvement. Our ci- 

 der is not improving; we have of late learned to 

 treat it better in great towns, but the farmers, whose 

 interests we espouse, drink a miserable liquor instead 

 of an excellent one, which they might have; they 

 obtain a reduced price for the article, in consequence 

 of the bad state in which it is brought to market. 



" It would appear from the above extracts from 

 the works of the most celebrated writers in the 

 best farming countries of Europe, that more ought 

 to be done at the press, and less at the cider cellars 

 of the cities. We get, to be sure, a clear, but a 

 medicated and factitous liquor, easily discernible by 

 men acquainted with the subject. The improve- 

 ment, if we have any, must originate at the cider 

 press, and i\\e farmer must reap the profit, not the 

 retailer, who sells it at thirty dollars per barrel. 



"The difficulty now is, that families are compell- 

 ed to go through this process of racking their cider 

 frequently, and refining it, after all which they are 

 not sure of having it good, and of course prefer to 

 pay the retailers three dollars a dozen for bottled 

 cider. 



" The price of the cider paid to the farmer will 

 always be regulated by the risk of its being good, 

 and the trouble required to make it so. If the farm- 

 ers could reduce the liquor into a vinous state, and 

 it is much more easily done before the agitation of 

 a removal, before it is transported to market, they 

 would obtain five and even ten dollars a barrel in- 

 stead of three. I have no hesitation to say, that 

 cider not only reduced to the vinous state, but re- 



