t 36 ] 
good observat ion will be able better to ascertain front 
nice and repeated experiments, than any directions 
which I am now able to give. This I presume will 
be admitted as a sound principle, that while on the 
one hand, an incomplete or too short fermentation, 
;must suffer the cider to retain too much acid, and 
what may be called irritable matter ; on the other 
hand, excessive fermentation must leave a light and 
weak bodied liquor, similar to the poorer sorts of 
wine; and if the pomace be suffered to descend 
again, which it will do when the fermenting process 
is over, the two evils of weakness and sourness will, 
by uniting their bad qualities, inevitably spoil the 
finest must which can be pressed from the apple* 
The common practice with us is, to let the fermen¬ 
tation take its own course, and throw off from the 
cider all the spirit it can ; and after it has subsided, 
to let the crude and acid substances which adhere to 
the pomace, sink down with it in the very liquor, 
which, by its own native efforts, had meant to throw 
off all foul and disgusting matter. The whole pro¬ 
cess is begun and finished in the same vessel. But, 
would it not be more reasonable to observe that point 
of time when the fermentation is beginning to cease, 
and before the pomace descends, to rack off into a 
s'weet cask about four fifths of the liquor, now con¬ 
siderably purified, and to close it tight from the op¬ 
eration of all external air ? Thus, what nature meant 
to expel, will have escaped ; and no new evil quali¬ 
ty, derived from the acid substances which cover the 
surface gf the fermented liquor, will be admitted or 
