488S 
HEW** 
are nearly worthless. The saccharine prop¬ 
erties are not developed in them, and these 
are essential as regards the quality of the 
juice. 
The size or general appearance of an apple 
has little or nothing to do with the quality of 
the juice. Sound, ripe apples of whatever 
size or shape are all that is required. It 
would be impossible to get the value of good 
apples in vinegar. Possibly it might be done 
in some fancy brands of cider; but only to a 
limited extent. 
The pomace has been in many cases allowed 
to remain a nuisance around many cider mills 
or dumped into some handy stream. The 
seeds are worth saving; but plenty of running 
water is required to separate them from the 
pulp. Steam mills that are fitted up with 
properly shaped tire boxes make a decided 
saving of fuel by burning the pomace. The 
real value of the pomace is as feed for stock. 
All animals eat it readily if it is properly fed. 
For some reason not easy to understand, if a 
farmer gets a load of pomace for nothing, he 
does not use any judgment in feeding it. 
There is a large amount of feed in a small 
bulk, and it should be fed with the same care 
as grain, a peck twice a day being a good 
average feed. It can be kept all winter by 
packing it when fresh in a reasonably tight 
box or bin, the nearer like a silo the better. 
I am making vinegar by wbat is sometimes 
called the “natural process,” which is simply 
nature’s way of changing cider to vinegar. I 
have a building 40x80 feet, four floors above 
the cellar, which is wholly devoted to vinegar 
making. I use liquor casks holding some 44 
gallons on an average. The floors are covered 
with casks as closely as possible, leaving room 
to get among them so as to draw the vinegar 
from each and fill one from another. These 
casks are allowed to remain for years. If they 
are first put in place filled with cider, it wilj 
take about two years to make it first-class 
vinegar; vinegar that will easily test four and 
one-half per cent acetic acid, which is the New 
A ork State standard. After the contents of 
the casks have become good vinegar, I draw 
it out and fill them up with cider as often as 
may be, keeping the vinegar up'to the desired 
strength. The building is kept warm in win¬ 
ter. 
The most attractive way of putting any ar¬ 
ticle on the market is always to put up a 
uniformly good article, fully up to the re¬ 
quired standard, in good clean packages. The 
business is not what would be termed profita¬ 
ble at present prices. It is very much like 
farming. If a man takes no account of the 
money he has invested, and does his own work, 
he ought to make some gain; but if one pays 
interest on the investment, and has all the 
work done by hired labor, I think the business 
will not pay. 
Some apple juice is made into jelly; but I 
think the market has been overstocked with a 
poor article, and this has in many cases nearly 
ruined the sale of really good goods. It is 
impossible to sell a good article at the price of 
a poorer one; still as a rule the consumer will 
demand the cheaper one, and for this reason 
the market is always overstocked with low- 
priced goods and a really good article has a 
slow sale, although it is really the cheapest at 
the price asked. 
New Hartford, N. Y. 
FROM C. H. GODFREY. 
Any varieties of apples that are good for 
eating, will make good cider, but they must 
be ripe. The apples for cider are not sorted, 
but the poor grades are made into vinegar, 
ihey will not pay as cider, because it is too 
cheap; but it will no doubt be dearer. 
Apples hereabouts are brought to the cider- 
mill by the farmers in wagons, weighed, and 
put in a storehouse, then they are shoveled in¬ 
to the elevator, to the third story of the mill, 
and ground fine in an iron cylinder, armed 
with knives that make 2,0u0 revolutions in a 
minute. The ground apples are called pomace 
and it falls from the grinder into a hopper¬ 
shaped vat hung to the’ ceiling in the second 
story. It is drawn from this on to a platform 
with a car under it, and piled up into cheeses 
four inches thick, a sack being placed first on 
each, and then a cloth until eight of them are 
laid up. I hen the platform is ruu under a 
press, and the cheeses are pressed by Boomer 
& Boschert press. I strain my juice with a fine 
copper sieve andput ic directly into barrels, 
prepare it with salycilic acid, and ship it to 
market. I do not clarify or bottle it. 
1 he pomace I re press for vinegar. Vinegar 
is made of cider made of early apples, wastes of 
mills and re-pressings put in large tanks and 
permitted to stand until it settles. Then it is 
taken and generated. A generator is a tank 12 
to 16 feet high, 4 to 6 feet in diameter with a 
false bottom filied with beech shavings. The 
vinegar stock is run through this, causing 
these shavings to get very sour and making a 
heat of UU to 100 degrees. I think the sooner 
the manufacturer can sell, the better for him. 
It pays me as I sell largely to consumers who 
take care of the cider. I ship it fresh as soon 
as made. With a large crop of fruit the 
business is overdone. 
Benton Harbor, Mich. 
TREATMENT OF FRUIT JUICE. 
The Germans and French are first authori¬ 
ties in regard to the treatment of fruit juices. 
Dr, Carl Jebn says : Nothing is more agreea¬ 
ble in summer heat than a glass of water 
tinctured with rare, well-conserved juice of 
any ripe fruit. This supplies all the aroma 
and all the agreeable and refreshing quality 
of the fruit, separated from skins, shells, seeds 
and all fecula. But instead of the conserved 
juice being bright-colored, translucent and 
aromatic, it is too often thick, discolored and 
carrying scarcely any of the agreeable odor 
and flavor of the fruit. This is often caused 
by too much heating, which dissipates the 
aroma. If freshly expressed juice of fruit is 
at once boiled with sugar, it becomes a jelly 
on cooling. This gelatinizing results from the 
pectine contained in the ripe, fleshy fruit. . In 
order to secure a fluid condition of the pre¬ 
air. The bottles or jars in which it is placed 
should be quite dry and somewhat heated and 
the sirup put into them on the hot stove. It 
will be beautifully bright and pellucid, and 
will keep perfectly for years. The stopper 
and tube can be had of a druggist. w. 
CHEAP VINEGAR GENERATOR. 
At Fig. 296 is shown an arrangement used 
by Chas. A. Green, who sent a photograph of 
the original. The design is to draw cider 
from one barrel to another, exposing it to the 
air and heat. The cider slowly drips from 
the upper barrel and trickles down the troughs 
to the other barrel. When the first barrel is 
emptied another is rolled up to take its place. 
THE CHEMISTRY OF FRUIT PACKING. 
PROF. F. H. STORER. 
“ From a chemical standpoint what woidd 
be the best treatment for apples and other 
fruits before (as well as after) packing, to 
prevent decay ? 
It is certain that there is still much to be 
POLITICAL CIDER. MORE AS IT SHOULD BE. Fig. 300. 
served juice the pectine must be decomposed, 
and this is effected by a slight fermentation. 
To effect this, crush the fruit and then place 
it in a stone-ware crock, not filling it full, and 
p\it in a warm place for two or three days, 
stirring it daily once or twice with a wooden 
or porcelain stirrer. It will be softened by 
the incipient fermentation so as to be easily 
pressed out. The juice is poured into a glass 
bottle to ferment further, and the bottle is 
closed air-tight by a rubber cork which has a 
smooth hole through it in which one leg of a 
U-shaped glass tube is inserted. The other 
leg of the tube dips into water in a closely ad¬ 
joining open flask, which is kept full. Soon 
the carbonic acid gas will be seen rising in 
bubbles through the water in the flask. As 
soon as this ceases, which will be usually in 
two days, the bottle of juice is placed in a 
cool room and left standing quite undisturbed 
24 or 36 hours, and it is then poured gently, so 
as not to disturb any sediment, through a 
loose paper filter placed in the funnel. It is 
then sugared to taste and heated to merely a 
boil—or to a much less degree, 140 degrees 
being sufficient if it is safely sealed from the 
learned in respect to methods of treatin 
apples and other fruits in order to preser\ 
them. The' importance of handling fru 
gently and of keeping it cool and not too dr 
is generally recognized, and it is known, to< 
that in so far as may be possible, it will l 
well to shield fruit from “germs” which ii 
fest the air. But the question how best i 
put these ideas into practice is still open an 
not a little complex. 
An apple or any other fruit is really a livin 
thing. No matter how ripe it may be, it 
still alive and breathing, and it undergot 
progressive physiological changes which ar 
akin to those which occur in plants and an 
mals. Long after it has been plucked fror 
the tree, the apple continues to develop an 
to ripen until it has passed through the seve 
ages which the poet tells of, and has run ou 
a term of life which may justly enough b 
compared with the three score years and te: 
which span our human existence. It is hardl, 
to be supposed that it would be possible wholl; 
to arrest this natural course of life of th 
ripening apple, as a means of preserving it ii 
an edible state. To stop the fruit from breatb 
ing would cause its death and death would be 
followed by chemical changes which could 
hardly fail to alter in some way the tex ure 
and flavor of the materials of which the food 
is composed It is true enough that by keep¬ 
ing the apple cool it may be made to ripen 
with extreme slowness and thus be granted a 
long lease of life. This much is done to day 
in many fruit preserving establishments and 
it is to be noted that besides putting off, as it 
were, old age and decrepitude, the method of 
refrigeration has the further merit of keep- 
ing quiet the microscopic organisms which 
cause decay. 
In cases where refrigeration is impractic¬ 
able, the aim should be to shield the fruit from 
the attacks of the microscopic organisms just 
referred to. Many kinds of apples (the Rox- 
bury Russet, for example) are tolerably well 
protected already by tough and varnished 
skins, which act as armor to repel the pygmy 
foe. Every one knows, for that matter, how 
much more quickly decay sets in when the 
skin of an apple is broken, or even bruised, 
than when the skin is whole. Since the air 
of most localities contains many germs of the 
organisms which cause decay, some slight ad¬ 
vantage is probably gained by keeping fruit 
covered in order to prevent the germs from 
falling upon it. The putting of fruit into 
boxes or barrels, the burying of it in sand, or 
the mere throwing upon it of a layer of straw, 
or a clean cloth or some boards probably helps 
to shield it. But care must be taken not to 
pack or cover up fruit in such wise that the 
conditions shall be favorable for its sweating, 
for whenever moisture is deposited upon fruit, 
decay is greatly favored. It is not well either 
to leave fruit lying in great heaps or to pack it 
in very large boxes lest heat enough be de¬ 
veloped to hasten the ripening and to bring on 
decay. 
One fundamental trouble is that there are 
always some microbes clinging to the fruit it¬ 
self w hen it is taken from the tree, which are 
ready to avail themselves of any circum¬ 
stances, such as a conjunction of moisture and 
warmth, which may be helpful for their de¬ 
velopment. If it were but possible to 
“sterilize” fruit completely, i. e., to free it 
from all adhering germs, it would be a com¬ 
paratively easy matter to hinder decay by 
keeping the fruit in receptacles to which air 
should have no access until it had been filtered 
or made to pass through some disinfecting or 
germicide liquid. Indeed, a mere layer of 
cotton batting placed upon fruit that had been 
completely freed from germs—supposing it 
were practically possible thus to free it— 
would be sufficient to pxevmt it from rotting. 
The great difficulty in this matter is to get a 
fair start. 
It is not improbable that germicide or anti¬ 
septic agents may one day be discovered, 
which when applied directly to fruit may 
serve a useful purpose for killing the attached 
germs and for retarding decay. But there 
will be needed agents which while killing the 
peccant microbes shall not kill the living cells 
of which the fruit itself consists. A useful 
approximation to this suggested system of 
antiseptics and coverings is seen to-day in the 
use of salt-marsh hay, which often acts fairly 
well for preserving fruits that are packed in 
it. Some years ago I heard of a pomologist 
who preserved fruit by burying it in canary 
seed. Here air could gain access to the fruit 
freely, but the air was filtered, so to say, by 
contact with the seed and there was no risk of 
the fruit becoming damp by sweating. Pos¬ 
sibly there may be some kind of acrid seed¬ 
less sharp, indeed, than mustard seed which 
would be apt to impart a bad flavor to the 
fruit—that might serve extremely well as a 
preservative. Perhaps these ideas might be 
imitated by soaking shoe pegs, or other small 
bits of wood, in a solution of salicylic acid (or 
some such antiseptic agent) and packing fruit 
beneath layers of these germicide pegs, after 
they had been carefully dried. Possibly saw¬ 
dust of adequate size and hardness, which had 
been thus soaked and dried, might do better 
than the pegs. Malaga grapes, as imported to 
this country, are packed in kegs filled with 
cork saw-dust. On trying an experiment of 
this kind it would be well not [to place the 
fruit in too dry a place, lest the fruit should 
shrivel through excessive transpiration of 
moisture. The salt-marsh hay, just spoken of, 
has the advantage of being both hygroscopic 
and germicide, in some small degree. 
For fruits which are liable to begin to decay 
at the core, as happens with many pears, it is 
well to smear the ends of the stems with 
melted wax, or with varnish, to prevent the 
entrance of microbes through this unprotected 
door. 
UTILIZING TH E DIST RICT SCHOOL. 
Common complaints about country schools- 
how to pick out a teacher; text-books' 
boarding 'round ; duties of parents. 
FRE D GRUN DY. 
1 was a school-director long enough to ob 
