Recent Improvements in Cider and Pernj MaJiiag. 181 
heap, each variety by itself, and protected by some means from 
the rain until it is fit for the mill. If not so protected, the 
fruit will both lose a quantity of saccharine matter, and its 
period of maturity be considerably retarded by the alternations 
of heat and damp to which it is subjected. The heaps should 
not be too deep — say about a foot or fifteen inches — or the 
fruit will heat and ferment. If the grower should have bai*ns 
or other places at his dis^DOsal in which he can store his fruits, 
so much the better ; but, failing these, a cheap and easily made 
shelter sufiicient for the purpose would be mats made out of 
long straw fastened between two poles or lathes either with 
tarred twine or iron wire. In France, as a general rule, 
granaries and barns are much used, with great advantage to the 
cider made, it appearing from experiments made upon two 
samples of liquor — the one made from apples exposed in the 
orchard, and the other from apples matured in a gi'anary — that 
the latter contained, six months after being made, one and a 
half per cent, more alcohol than the former. In America the 
freezing-houses which are on every fruit farm are used for the 
same purpose. For a description and details of these buildings 
the reader is referred to " Downing's American Orchardist." 
Those fruits which have been blown off the trees or dropped off 
should not be mixed with those gathered, but be put through 
the mill by themselves, when they will make a liquor for imme- 
diate consumption. 
All cider fruits may be di\-ided into three classes, viz. the 
sweet, the bitter-sweet, and the acid ; all of which communicate 
a distinct taste and property to the cider made from them. 
The sweet fruit produce? a pleasant, agreeable drink, which 
must be consumed at once, or it will soon become bitter and 
ropy ; the bitter-sweet, on the contrary, makes an excellent 
cider, of good, long-keeping qualities, which may be accounted 
for by the presence of the bitter principle ; while the acid 
fruits give a liquor fit for no other purpose than making 
vinegar. 
Good cider owes its flavour and long-keeping qualities 
mainly to the presence of two substances, viz. sugar and tannin : 
the sugar forming alcohol under the action of fermentation, and 
the tannin assisting to keep the liquor clear and bright after- 
wards ; but their parts will be more fully treated when that 
action is discussed. 
In order to determine the value of the juice, it is necessary 
te employ a saccharometer, which is used in the following 
manner : — 
Five or six apples are taken of the kind it is desired to test, arid tbe 
Juice crushe(| out ai;d filteredi Tl^e insirument lieing placed in tl^e juice 
