IMPORTANCE OF METHOD APPLE MILLS. 407 



unfit for keeping. "We have alluded to this circum- 

 stance in the second paragraph of this paper : the 

 person alluded to used always to grind up his apples 

 soon after they fell from the trees ; he scarcely made 

 one hogshead of good cider in his life ; the writer 

 of this adopted a contrary course, that is, he kept 

 his apples as long as he could without their being 

 rotten, and he never made one hogshead of bad 

 cider, after he understood the theory of it. We 

 mention this fact here again, because chiefly upon 

 it depends the goodness or badness of all cider of 

 almost any situation, and with almost any apples ; 

 it must be nevertheless admitted, that there are some 

 apples of the wild crab kind, which contain so much 

 acid, and so little sugar, as to be totally unfitted for 

 making good cider. We must, however, remember, 

 that the acid taste of apples is by no means a crite- 

 rion of their quality as cider apples, for it not unfre- 

 quently happens, that a bitter, ill-tasted, and even 

 acid apple, will make better cider than one of a sweet 

 and pleasant taste ; the stubbord and the cockagee are 

 exemplifications of both extremes. 



Various methods are adopted for converting ap- 

 ples into pummace or pommage, as apples after being 

 ground in an apple-mill, are called : two, however, 

 are mostly used ; one consists of a bruising-stone and 

 a circular trough, worked by a horse ; the other a 

 mill, which has two pairs of rollers, (many will have 

 only one pair,) the upper pair being stuck with cogs 

 and dags, and the under pair being of very hard wood 

 turned smooth, and worked with cogs ; it is usually 

 turned by two persons. The upper rollers reducing 



