42 



AMERICAN* STANDARDS. 



Early in the nineteenth centuiy much interest was manifested in the 

 United States in the culture of cider apples, and in the manufacture 

 of this beverage at a few points. Perhaps Newark, N. J.. , was one of 

 the most noted centers of this infant industry. In New England, how- 

 ever, the cider fruits were cultivated, and the Massachusetts Agricul- 

 tural Societ} 7 showed considerable interest in encouraging these efforts. 

 From scraps of information and brief references, it also appears that 

 Virginia planters were interested, and rated good cider highly. 



William Coxe was one of the first to write on this subject, so far as 

 the early literature available shows. His treatise on Fruit Trees is 

 dated 1817, and 1 in it he speaks of the high quality of Hewes Virginia 

 Crab and the Harrison apple for cider making. The latter is of New 

 Jersey origin, and helped to make the quality of New Jersey ciders 

 recognized in the early days of our history. Coxe also mentions the 

 Newtown Pippin and Winesap, both well recognized to-day as yielding 

 cider of high quality, but lacking in the element of tannin. The 

 Hagloe Crab, an old English cider crab, is constantly mentioned in 

 the early literature, and the Vandevere is also spoken of as a cider 

 fruit. 



In the change of habits which came over our people about the mid- 

 dle of the past century, cider gradually lost its place as a beverage, 

 used alike by the well-to-do and the laboring classes, and the art of 

 making it seemed to fall into desuetude. The country people and a 

 number of large commercial establishments have continued to make a 

 beverage from apple must, but, in the main, it is very inferior in 

 quality. Even the varieties of fruit best suited for making this bev- 

 erage have almost been lost to our pomology, and later writers rarely 

 mention them. Yet it can scarcely be contended that our people use 

 less fermented beverages or less ardent spirits than formerly. 



The early American writers of consequence are Coxe and Thatcher, 

 and these gentlemen did little more than copy the best English and 

 French writers of their time, weaving in some local experience. Of 

 real technical study there was none. The writings of Thomas Andrew 

 Knight, and articles in Willich's Domestick Encyclopedia, furnished 

 the basis of these early dissertations. Many of the principles laid 

 down by these old writers contain the germ of the best practice of the 

 present day. Strangely enough, the new encyclopedia of horticulture 

 (Bailey's) does not contain the word cider as a subject. 



It has already been stated that we have not at present in the United 

 States a distinct industry in the growing of cider fruits. Yet it is 

 true that some of our crab apples, and some varieties of apples also, 

 have been cultivated to a limited extent for cider and are considered 

 valuable for this purpose, but it is seldom that they are grown to any 

 large extent. 



