184 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Cider is also made in the five neighbouring counties of 

 Cornwall, Dorset, Monmouth, Shropshire, and Wiltshire. Taking 

 these counties into account, and omitting some produce made 

 in Norfolk and Kent, and a little elsewhere, it has been calculated 

 that the area under orcharding amounts to about 140,000 acres. 

 If from this we make a liberal deduction of one-fifth for fruit- 

 trees other than apples and pears exclusively used for cider- and 

 perry-making, we shall find the net acreage of cider and perry 

 orcharding to be 112,000 acres. The authors of that great work, 

 the " Herefordshire Pomona," give as an average yield (a low 

 average) of liquor per acre 200 gallons, and the averge price 3c/. 

 per gallon. I consider this considerably below the true figures. 

 Somersetshire and Devonshire orchards are, as a rule, planted 

 much more thickly than Herefordshire orchards, and 3(7. a gallon 

 is too low an average price, seeing that good r cider fetches from 

 Scl. to Is. a gallon, and the juice as it runs from the mill 1\d. 

 to 3(7. I therefore put the yield as 300 gallons per acre, and the 

 price 5d. per gallon. The total produce then would be 33,600,000 

 gallons, and the value =£700,000. Mr. Sampson, the late secre- 

 tary of the National Association of Cider-makers, who is well 

 acquainted with Somersetshire and adjoining counties, puts the 

 yield at 55,443,200 gallons, and the value ±1,000,000. These 

 are necessarily estimates, and estimates only, but I have said 

 enough to indicate that the industry is a considerable one, and, 

 as I shall presently show, an increasing one. 



I must now very briefly describe the liquors themselves and 

 the process of making them. Cider is the expressed and fermented 

 juice of the apple, and perry the expressed and fermented juice of 

 the pear ; or, in other and stricter words, they are the vinous 

 liquors produced by fermentation of the juices of these fruits 

 before acetous or vinegar fermentation has succeeded. It is not, 

 however, all apples or all pears whose juice will make good cider 

 and perry. Go into a Herefordshire fruit-yard when cider- making 

 is proceeding, and out of the heaps of apples and pears you would 

 see there you would scarcely find one that you could cat, and 

 very few that you would not at once reject in disgust by 

 reason of their harshness, tartness, acidity, or astringency. 

 The experience of all makers in the cider districts of England and 

 France, where the industry has existed for centuries, points to 

 the conclusion that good cider and perry possessing the flavour, 



