PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 171 



tastes to what are termed "dry wines," and then we shall cease to have a 

 taste for intoxicating beverages, such as are all the sugared wines, in a 

 considerable degree, as well as alcohol produced by distillation of sugar or 

 fruit juice. 



Saving Apple Seeds. 



Mr. F. K. Phenix, of Bloomington, 111., sends very full directions for sav- 

 in »• apple seeds, which have become an important article of trade, and are 

 usually worth from $3.50 to $6 a bushel, and a load of pomace will yield 

 one and a half to two bushels of seed, or the pomace of ten or twelve bar- 

 rels of cider will yield a bushel, and four men, with suitable appliances, 

 can get out ten bushels a day. 



" A running stream of water is necessary, and some kind of machinery 

 to agitate the pomace in a trough, which should be ten feet long, fourteen 

 inches wide, six inches high, with a gate at the upper end to let in the 

 water, and a sieve at the lower end to catch the pomace and let the seeds 

 through into a box, which will hold them, but not the water. The fresher 

 the pomace, the better it floats off; besides, if kept till it heats much, the 

 seeds will be injured. It will spoil in two days' warm weather, unless 

 spread to dry, and then it is better if first soaked, which loosens it so that 

 it breaks up easier, which must be done in all cases before the seed can 

 be separated. A cylinder somewhat like a threshing machine is used to 

 break up pomace. Sometimes a pomace beater is extemporized out of an 

 old fanning mill, by substituting a spiked cylinder and bed piece in place 

 of the fan. The cylinder may be five inches in diameter, with some fifty 

 spikes, two and a half inches long; and a plank one and a half inches 

 thick, six inches wide, with twenty-penny nails driven through, will answer 

 for a bed piece. 



" The beater is set over the working trough, which has a steady stream 

 of water, three inches deep, if possible, in which the broken pomace falls, 

 and is agitated and washed, and the seeds have to be brought back and 

 passed through again, and perhaps again. A simpler but slower mode is 

 to soak up the pomace in a large vat or tub, stirring it thoroughly, and 

 floating it off the surface, while the seed settles at the bottom. Drying the 

 seed is also very important, as when fresh and wet it heats soon, thereby 

 ruining the germs. Seed from old, partly heated pomace is more apt to 

 spoil. After the seed is cleaned, spread thin in sun, and stir often to get 

 the outside moisture off. Then spread in chamber or loft, with doors and 

 windows open for free ventilation. In a well ventilated loft the seed 

 spread thin would cure thoroughly and fast enough from the first. Curing 

 wholly in the sun is deemed prejudicial to the vitality of the seeds. If not 

 spread quite thin, the seed must be stirred thoroughly two or three times 

 a day; the oftener the better, to prevent molding. Apple seed can doubt- 

 less be dried too much, but it is oftener the other way. 



" Good, newly dried apple seed weighs fo|fy-two to forty-four pounds to 

 the bushel; older and more thoroughly dried, forty pounds. Seed from 

 heated pomace is always more or less damaged. It may not be all bad, 

 but is untrustworthy, and always higher colored than from good, new pom- 

 ace. Seed got out good at first is made lighter by drying in the sun, or 



