It may be noted that although good cider—even the best—can be made from dessert and culinary fruit, yet dessert pears are not well adapted for perry, as their produce is usually watery, and does not fine well. CHAPTER XLIX. ON FRUIT-GATHERING, ETC. In making cider and perry there are several important matters to be taken into consideration, as upon the due observance of these success will mainly depend. These are— The selection, gathering, and storing of the fruit. The grinding of the fruit, and storage of the drink. The after-management, keeping, fining, &c. &c. Orchard fruit is economized chiefly in the three following methods:— 1. Cooking Apples—used for culinary purposes. 2. Dessert Apples—some of the fine-flavoured varieties. 3. Cider Fruit—which includes all the others. 1. Cooking apples may be hand-picked as they become ripe, and those that will not keep long, as the various codlins, may be disposed of in the lump to the fruiterer, or sent to market in smaller quantities. The good keeping apples may be sold in the lot when ripe, or kept in store to be retailed at market. Both these sets of apples require to be gathered with some care; in short, to be what are called “hand-picked,” as, when bruised, they not only are injured for present use, but their keeping qualities are greatly affected. For store apples the fruit should be gathered before being what is called “dead ripe,” that is, when they are quite crisp and juicy; one of the best indications of fitness being a bright light-brown kernel as opposed to a dull dark-brown. The fruit should be kept in a dry room, from which frost is entirely excluded, and where air can freely ventilate whenever required. The best plan is to fit up such a room with shelves made up of laths three inches wide, and placed an inch and a half or two inches apart. [Illustration: PLAN OF SHELF FOR KEEPING FRUIT.] In this way _a_ represents the laths, of which there may be many or few to each shelf according to the breadth required; _b_, the interspaces. Here, then, the fruit is placed in lines over the interspaces, the object being thus to secure a free passage for the air all around the fruit; if placed in a single layer, faulty ones can be seen at a glance, and these should be removed as soon as detected. If this plan be found too onerous, and fruit must be put together in larger quantity, we would advise that they be so placed as that air can get to them from below. Keeping fruit in heaps in corners, or even spreading them between layers of straw, tends to their destruction rather than preservation. If, then, it be borne in mind that the end to aim at, in order to keep fruit, is that of exposing sound examples to the free access of the air, it will be seen that the nearer we can secure this the better will be our result.