THE CIDER AND PERRY INDUSTRY. 



185 



the quality — what old writers term the smartness on the palate — 

 and the long keeping property which commend the liquor to 

 cider drinkers can only be made from special varieties of apples 

 and pears, varieties for the most part too harsh and astringent 

 for table use, and too small to be saleable for consumption. The 

 astringency which is the chief characteristic of good cider and 

 perry fruit is due to tannin, which next to sugar and alcohol 

 (into which the bulk of the sugar is converted) is the most 

 important element in the fresh juice. "It makes," say the 

 authors of the " Herefordshire Pomona," " the liquor ' fine ' more 

 readily by causing the albumen, the pectine, and the yeast plants 

 to be deposited, and thus acts indirectly as an antiseptic, 

 regulates the fermentation, and prevents the after tendency to 

 ropiness, so apt to appear in the liquor from fruits of great rich- 

 ness." French writers and chemists also agree in this opinion. 

 The process of cider- and perry-making is simple, and resembles 

 that of wine-making. The ripe fruit is crushed or ground in a 

 mill to a greater or less degree of fineness. The old-fashioned 

 mills in which a huge stone roller, or runner as it is called, shaped 

 like a grindstone, revolves by horse-power in a circular stone 

 trough grinds the pulp exceedingly fine, and some of the best 

 cider and perry to be found in the world is made in such mills ; 

 but the system, though suitable enough on a farm, is too slow for 

 manufacture on a large scale ; and for this purpose a mill some- 

 thing like a turnip cutter, in which the fruit, after being broken 

 up by toothed rollers or scratchers, is passed through stone 

 rollers, is to be preferred, and can be worked either by hand or 

 by power. The crushed fruit or pomace, as it is sometimes 

 termed, is pressed through hair or manilla cloths or layers 

 of straw, and the juice extracted. The juice is then placed in 

 vats to ferment, and when it has thrown up a crust and thrown 

 down lees, and is a more or less clear liquid between the two lees, 

 it is drawn off into casks, in which regular fermentation proceeds. 

 The process of fermentation I need not describe to this audience. 

 Suffice it to say that its effect is to render the liquor vinous by 

 the conversion of the sugar of the fruit into alcohol. The fer- 

 mentation is the most difficult stage in the process of cider- 

 making. Either it is unduly delayed by cold or by a 

 deficiency of sugar in the fruit or, what is more often the case, 

 it is too persistent, and continues so long as ultimately to exhaust 



