i34 
FRUIT GATHERING : APPLE HEAPS. 
mellow. With the exception of a very few varieties of noted strength and flavour, Cider is made 
from different sorts of Apples mixed together, and this custom has ever been most popular :— 
“ There are, that a compounded Fluid drain, 
From different Mixture. Woodcock , Pippin , Moy/e, 
Rough Elliot, sweet Pearmain , the blendid streams 
(Each mutually correcting each) create 
A pleasurable Medly, of what Taste 
Hardly distinguish’d.”—Philips’ “ Cyder.” 
But all the fruits should be well mellowed in the heaps. The good judgment of the Ciderist here 
comes into play, in mixing the varieties which will improve each other. The Foxwhelps, Redstreaks , 
Sty res, Cowarne and Dymock Reds, &c., will give flavour and strength in return for the sugar and 
mucilage they receive from the Wildings and the best of the Norman Apples. 
When placed on the ground in the open air the Apple heaps may be allowed to be from one 
to two feet in thickness without fear of the fruit becoming heated, but on a dry floor the thickness 
should not exceed one foot. The heaps should most certainly be protected from all changes of 
weather, which cannot fail to be injurious to it. When placed in the orchard, therefore, the heaps 
should be made in rows that can be protected by thatched hurdles resting on a pole, running the 
whole length of the heap, which are at all times readily moved or replaced, and covered with 
cloths or tarpauling, if frost should set in. 
The sun causes the fruit it falls upon to ferment unequally, though it seldom shines sufficiently, 
at least in England, to do much mischief in the autumn. Rain, which is so frequent at this time, 
injures the quality of the fruit very seriously. If any one doubts this, let him put a whole and sound 
Apple in a glass of clear water, and let it remain there for seven or eight hours. By this time the 
water will have taken a rosy hue with the sweet taste of the Apple, whilst the Apple itself will have 
lost much of its flavour. The explanation is, that by the natural laws, always in operation between 
fluids of different density, the water has kept passing into the Apple, and the juice has passed out 
into the water, greatly to the injury of the fruit. Frost is also very injurious to fruit, for after it has 
been frozen it will never ferment properly. A French chemist found the loss to be about one and a 
half per cent, of alcohol with fruit that had been frozen. 
It is most desirable therefore that the fruit heaps should be well protected even if it may not 
be thought advisable to place them in some open shed, or wain house. Protection of the fruit from 
frost, is as little thought of in Herefordshire, as it is from rain. During the Winter 1878-9, and 
1879-80, though fruit was scarce and both winters exceptionally severe, it was a rare circumstance 
to see the Apple heaps about the orchard in any way protected. 
Cider makers in all ages have agreed that to make prime cider the best fruit must be used 
in its best condition. When the fruit has become in good order, it must be carefully looked 
over as it is put into the baskets to be carried to the mill, and all that is unripe, inferior, or rotten, 
must be scrupulously rejected. Unripe fruit contains neither sugar nor flavour :—heated or frost 
bitten fruit will not ferment properly : bruised and rotten fruit introduce the elements of injurious 
fermentation ; indeed all watery and inferior fruit should be ground by itself for the inferior liquor it 
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