THE SCOTS GARDENER 



all : white-wine, sack-cask, or such as keept cyder 

 before. I have heard of cyder-casks three inches 

 thick in the staves, which I believe is of great ad- 

 vantage in preserving the liquor ; but if any be 

 tainted, put a little unslaked lyme-stone, and a 

 little water in the barrel, and stop it close ; when 

 it has stood a little while and jumbled, pour out and 

 wash clean ; that will cure. 



The fruit being gathered ripe, as before, let them 

 ly ten or twelve dayes, if summer-fruit ; and near 

 the double of that time, if winter-sorts ; but late 

 ripe fruit that get frosts is not good cyder : mix not 

 with unripe ones, neither suffer leaves nor stalks 

 among them. When they are small beat, put them 

 in the harbag within the press-fat, and so screw 

 them hard again and again ; then emptie it there- 

 of and put in more, and do so as before : empty the 

 receiver into the tapering-fat, and then cover it 

 close with a canvass till the morrow at that time, 

 before you tun it, that the gross lee may fall to the 

 bottom ; then draw it off at a tap three inches from 

 the bottom, leaving the dreg behind (the which 

 may go among the pressings for water-cyder). The 

 clearer you tun it into the barrels, the less it fer- 

 ments, and that's the best cyder ; for often cyder 



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