the Maliiiu/ of Cider and Perry. 
387 
These are most of them new kinds, and are described by Knight 
and Forsyth as good bearers. It Avill be seen that they are ahnost 
all either red, yellow, or a mixture of both; and are described, 
for the most part, as being either tart, acid, harsh, or austere. 
Some diversity of opinion exists in different districts as to the 
fruit best adapted to making good cider, but this may be chiefly 
owing to diversity of tastes, some preferring a somewhat austere 
and dry cider, and others a liquor in which sweetness predomi- 
nates over the natural acidity of the fruit. 
An old writer speaks in the highest terms of a cider made from 
a mixture of an uneatable pear which grew in the neighbourhood 
of Ross, in Herefordshire, called the Jenny Winter, and the wild 
crab. He says, — 
" The pear is of no use, except for making cider. If a thief steal it 
he would incur a speedy vengeance, it being a furious purger ; but, 
being joined with well chosen crabs, and reserved to due maturity, ic 
becomes riclier than a good French wine ; but if drank before the time 
it stupifies the roof of the mouth, assaults tlie brain, and purges more 
violently than a Galenest. According as it is managed, it proves 
stronger than Rhenish, Barsac, yea, pleasant Canary, sugared of 
itself; or as rough as the fiercest Greek wine, holding one, two, three, 
or more years, so tiiat no mortal can say at what age it proves the best. 
This we can say, that we have kept it until it burns as quickly as sack, 
draws the flame like naphtha, and fires the stomach like aqua-vit<x. I 
made trial at my own house with wine d'Hay, by a merchant at Bristol 
highly extolled, which, compared with a liquor made of pears and wild 
crabs, was so much inferior, in tlie judgment of all, that tlie comparison 
was quite ridiculous. A great planter had then by him many tuns of 
the liquor made of this mixture of fruit, that carried the applause from 
all palates ; and his common yields him store of this fruit. He says 
that the best of these pears grow on very bare and sandy hills or vales; 
crabs on any mound or bank that may be raised on a heath ; that one 
pear-tree bears ordinarily 40 or 70 gallons, statute measure, atid some 
seven times as much. Since I undertook this argument, we have made 
in one year 50,000 hogsheads, and this shows the hardiness of the fruit. 
Let our noble patriots weigh this, the art of raising store of rich wines 
on our common arable, on our hill and waste grounds : the charge a 
trifle, the pains small, the profit incredible. For some uses the shadow 
of the orchard brings on the grass a fortnight the sooner, as commonly 
for ewes and lambs." 
This is a very high-flown panegyric, and is evidently that of a 
zealous advocate for the cultivation of orchards ; and if the good 
gentleman wrote under the genial influence of his favourite beve- 
rage, which would appear not very unlikely, yet it is fair to 
adhere to the old adage, In vino Veritas, notwithstanding some 
little extravagance of expression. He does not inform us, how- 
ever, by what difference of management such very opposite quali- 
ties as tliose mentioned are produced, at least with any degree 
