We have seen heaps of apples, consisting of many waggon-loads, in the orchard at Christmas, when wet and frost had so preyed upon them that none of their proper juices remained. This is certain to make a cider which will be of inferior quality; and though some of our friends boast of the good quality of their cider which has been made in the roughest manner, yet one cannot help thinking how much better it might have been with the fruit carefully collected, and kept until it could be ground. Still, with all our care in this matter, disappointment is sometimes the result; for it is with cider as with wine, the season will have a great deal to do with it, though with both, the manner of making and storing will be all-important matters, to which we shall advert in the next chapter. We much object to the gathering of fruit for any purpose in the wet. Were it not for the expense, it would be better to take advantage of dry weather, and to collect even cider-fruit by hand-picking before it has become dead ripe, and so let the ripening process be completed in some dry storing-place. In our own experience of cider-making, the two or three casks made for home consumption from carefully picked and well-kept fruit are usually of the best quality, and so made we believe cider to be a most agreeable and very wholesome beverage,—to paraphrase Isaac Walton, only fit for farmers or very honest men. As long, however, as rough people are about who never know when they have had enough, the rougher cider made by a ruder process is quite good enough. It must be obvious to all that if a man can drink as much as four gallons of good cider in a day’s mowing, he would be better off with a less quantity of an inferior sort, supplemented with tea or coffee. CHAPTER L. ON CIDER-MAKING AND ITS MANAGEMENT. In making cider or perry it is well not to begin unless the weather be moderately cool, as in hot weather the changes in the fluid become too rapid, and it consequently does not keep well. The first process will be to grind the fruit into as perfect a state of pulp as possible. This will be effected when the kernels are decidedly crushed. Such a state of pulp usually ensures the best results, not only from the fact that the whole juice of the fruit is not only set free, but it is all exposed to the action of the air, by which both the colour and quality are greatly improved; and, besides this, every good quality is decidedly increased by having the principles and flavour of the kernels mixed with the other juices. The method by which this is best effected is by grinding in the usual circular stone horse-mill. This is confessedly a slow process, but notwithstanding the newer methods, to be presently described, we still prefer it to all others, and that from the great completeness with which the grinding is effected.