136 
FRUIT MANAGEMENT I THE MILL ; GRINDING. 
Mill is that it is apt to roll the pulp too quickly before it and the fruit thus escapes been evenly crushed, 
and this is not altogether obviated by having the stones grooved diagonally in the usual way. The 
difficulty of removing the pulp from the trough is another disadvantage belonging to it. 
About the year 1689 Worlidge invented a moveable iron mill, which he called the “ Ingenio,” 
a name borrowed from the Cubans who, curiously enough, grind their sugar at the present day with 
a machine thus called. With this mill he tells us that “ two labourers, one feeding and the other 
grinding, can manage eight bushels an hour by interchanging all the day, with ease and delight. The 
“ Ingenio” was introduced into Somersetshire many years before it was introduced into Devonshire, 
Gloucestershire, or Herefordshire, but it is only of late years that its use became general in Hereford¬ 
shire, for the Stone Mills on the spot were as durable as they were effective and kept in high favour. It 
is curious that at the end of the 18th century Marshall speaks of the old Stone Mill as “an unfinished 
machine,” whilst Thomas Andrew Knight some twenty years later, at the begining of the 19th 
century, considered that much of the celebrity of Herefordshire Cider was due to the perfection to 
which the Stone Mill had been brought ; this feeling in its favour still exists more or less through 
the county. 
The French have paid great attention to their fruit machines. They have one, the Ecraseur , 
“ Salmon and Bergot” which grinds seventy-five bushels per hour with ease; and this has now been 
surpassed by the “ Ecraseur Universal ',” which with only one pair of granite cylinders will grind 
two hundred bushels of fruit per hour, besides being ready at all times to do the whole work of 
pulping roots, &c., which may be required on the farm. 
Various mills have been invented of late years. Mr. Davis, of Linton, near Ross, has 
introduced an admirable machine, in which the crushing power, by a clever application of the French 
principle, is very considerably increased by causing the two stone cylinders to rotate at different 
degrees of speed. Indeed, in these days, machinery has reached so great a degree of perfection 
that a traction steam engine draws the mill and an attendant press into the orchard ; grinds up the 
fruit heaps at a rapid rate, and presses the pulp forthwith. The math or cake is rejected on the 
spot, and the casks all filled at once with the must. The whole process is completed with an economy 
of time and labour that can scarcely be exceeded. This economy, however, is false; it exists only 
in the rapidity of the work. It would soon vanish if the mill had to be taken from time to time to 
the orchard, as the different varieties of fruit ripened; and thus it comes to pass that all the Apples are 
ground up at once,—early and late varieties,—ripe and unripe,—and are forthwith submitted to the 
press. No time is allowed for the pulp, or “pommage,” as the old writers called it, to absorb the 
oxygen from the air, or for the juices set free to extract the full flavour of the fruit from the rind, 
the pips, and its more solid parts,—thus the Cider must inevitably be of inferior quality, and thus 
too the so called economy defeats itself. 
Grinding. —The degree of fineness to which the fruit should be reduced into pulp has been 
much discussed. The writers of the 17th century considered that the fruit need not be ground very 
small, though they stated that it was the common practice to do so, in order to obtain more Cider. 
Marshall says that in the South, and everywhere except in the Cider Counties, it was thought that the 
