182 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



orchard." The same Dr. Beale, whom I just now cited, thus 

 extols the cider which these orchards produced: " I must not," 

 he says, "prescribe to other palates by asserting to what degree of 

 perfection good cider may be raised, or to compare it with 

 wines, but when the late King Charles I. (of blessed memory) 

 came to Hereford in his distress, and such of the gentry of 

 Worcestershire as were brought thither as prisoners, both king, 

 nobility, and gentry did prefer it before the best wines those 

 parts afforded ; and to my knowledge that cider had no kind of 

 mixture. Generally, all the gentry of Herefordshire do abhor all 

 mixtures." The industry of cider and perry making was a profit- 

 able one throughout the eighteenth and into the early part of the 

 nineteenth century. About 100 years ago an Irish gentleman, 

 making a tour through the cider-producing districts, mentions that 

 at that date good cider fetched from 10 to 15 guineas a hogshead 

 (of 100 gallons) in the neighbourhood of Ross, and that one farmer 

 there had sold in one year 50 hogsheads of his own making at 

 the former figure. 



Even so lately as 40 or 50 years ago cider was sold straight 

 from the press at one shilling a gallon. Now, or until quite 

 recently, the price of new cider has been from 2d. to 3d. per 

 gallon — inferior no doubt to that just mentioned, but yet 

 given away at the price. Subsequently, the industry declined for 

 two main reasons. During the French war the price of corn 

 and meat was very high ; and farmers, turning their attention to 

 corn-growing and cattle-raising, grubbed up their orchards, many 

 of which, and generally the most prolific, were on plough land ; 

 and as other agricultural produce became more profitable 

 neglected to keep up such orchards as were allowed to remain. 

 They also became careless in the making of cider and perry 

 when these products of the farm were of less value. Then for 

 the second reason I allege the selfish and suicidal conduct of the 

 cider merchants and middlemen who, after buying the liquor 

 from the farmers at a low price, thinned it with water, making, as 

 the saying went, five hogsheads out of three, and then doctored 

 and fortified it in order to disguise their malpractice, and make 

 stuff sufficiently palatable to sell in Bristol and London, which 

 were the chief centres of the trade. The result of the spreading 

 abroad of this thin doctored stuff for pure cider was to bring the 

 drink into general discredit with the public, and ultimately lessen 

 the demand for it, and injure the trade. Hence also good 



