XIL 



THE FOREST STIRE. 



The Forest Stire is almost universally supposed to afford 

 a stronger cider than any other kind of apple. I am, 

 however, much inclined to doubt its pretensions in this 

 respect, and to believe that the juice either of the Hag- 

 loe Crab, or Brandy Apple, if obtained from fruit of 

 equal maturity, and fermented with equal skill, would be 

 found to afford, by distillation, as much, if not a greater 

 quantity of ardent spirit. The Stire is a native of Glouces- 

 tershire, and is planted principally in the light soils in the 

 neighbourhood of the Forest of. Dean, where it affords a 

 stronger cider than in the deeper soils of Herefordshire. I 

 have not been able to find any account of it previously to the 

 publication of Philips's Poem,* where it is called the Stirom, 

 on what authority I do not know. 



The trees of the Forest Stire, are not by any means very 

 productive of fruit; and the fruit itself contains but a very 

 small portion of juice ; the specific gravity of which, I have 

 observed to vary from IO76 to 1081, though obtained from 

 samples of equal maturity and apparent perfection ; but 

 which were produced by different soils. The Plate presents 

 the apple in its most perfect and beautiful state. 



This variety, as Mr. Marshal in his Rural Economy of 

 Gloucestershire has remarked, is decaying rapidly. 



* Cider. 



