THE MARKET FOR CIDER 197 



is injured by the both indifferent standard of the 

 public taste which is inclined to demand cider sweet 

 and sticky and the competition of certain other 

 manufacturers in whose products apples play only a 

 part, and that not always a leading one. These 

 manufacturers generally name their wares something 

 else than plain cider ; but anyhow they are allowed 

 a free hand. 



Without doubt there is a considerable desire on the 

 part of the public to obtain good cider, and a big trade 

 might be worked up if the good makers would only 

 organize into the sort of union for the purpose of 

 selling a guaranteed article that prevails in every 

 German wine-producing community. Each village on 

 the Moselle has its own Verein, and the right to use 

 the proper label is accorded only to those members 

 of the Verein who conform to certain regulations as to 

 manufacture, and whose products are passed by the 

 appointed tester. And there is no reason to give less 

 care to cider than to wine ; cider from vintage fruit 

 of a good year properly selected and blended becomes 

 on keeping a beverage of extraordinary delicacy and 

 quality, but it is rare to find it even in the best cellars 

 of its native district. We thought the season of 1911 

 ought to produce something exceptionally good ; there 

 was a fine crop of apples, which must have possessed 

 an unrivalled sugar content and flavour, a real vintage 

 year when a good make of cider ought to keep and 

 steadily improve for ten years. 



Though the hop gardens and the cider orchards 

 were green enough in that year of drought, the most 

 refreshing feature in the Teme Valley was the meadow- 

 land by the stream, where, for the first time for many 

 weeks, we saw real grass deep enough to give grazing 

 cattle a full bite. In previous dry seasons these 



