3. Fruit for cider-making will consist of “wind-falls,” that is, such as has fallen prematurely ripe, or been shaken off by the wind; and gathered fruit. As regards wind-falls, it is only necessary to state that, although these can only be employed for an inferior kind of drink, yet even this may be improved by care, as thus:—Instead of picking up the apples while they are still wet with dew, they should be gathered in as dry a state as possible, and then not, as is too often the case, huddled together in a heap in the orchard, exposed to alternations of frost, and wet, and dry. Such fruit will often require to be kept for some time waiting temperate weather, which is best for cider-making. It should be kept then under cover, and in such a manner that the air can get beneath it; and for this purpose we have found a few wattled hurdles well adapted for keeping fruit on that is waiting to be ground. In gathering cider-fruit we should consider it ripe at that period when a not rude shake of a limb would cause most of it to fall pretty well at one and the same time. We dislike beating off fruit with sticks, as it damages the bearing shoots. In fine, in gathering fruit all undue violence should be carefully avoided, as it is unwise to use that amount of hurry, which will only secure a large present crop, unless it can be done in such a manner as not to injure our hopes of the future. It is a curious circumstance that in the garden there is usually something like a crop, even in a bad season; but in the orchard we seldom meet with anything like a crop the year following what is called a “hit of fruit,” and only the finer sorts of apples which are hand-gathered with care are often found to be most constant bearers, while the rougher cider-fruits seldom afford a good crop oftener than once in from three to five years. Surely, then, much of this must be the result of the rougher treatment to which cider-fruit is so carelessly subjected. When the fruit is collected, it should be put in a dry airy place, to await the process of grinding. For this we adopt the plan of spreading it in sheds or outhouses on wattled hurdles. This keeps it from the rain, by which it becomes sodden when in exposed heaps: then the wind will only partially dry it, and the result will be a general heating of the mass, which results, if not in quick decay amounting to absolute rottenness, yet in that state, technically called “moisey,”[31] or dead, in which the juices are nearly dried up and the fruit flavourless. [31] Apple moise, or apple moce, was an old dish made of pressed apples. In cider counties apples are called moisey when they are juiceless, dry, and without flavour—dead. (See Archaic Dictionaries.)