Cider-making is not a very pleasant sight; and I have known people say that they would never touch cider again, having once seen how it was made. A crushed apple is not a pretty thing at any time, and is none the prettier for being in company with several thousand others. However, cider-making is not quite as bad as wine-making in Southern Italy and Sicily. There they tread the grapes: if the vat is small, they get the cramp; and I have seen men jump out of the vat, take a sharp run up and down a very un-swept road, and jump straight in again. The _Asti_ wine of Northern Italy is curiously like the wine that we make out of rhubarb here; and one might suspect the Asti of being rhubarb wine, only rhubarb costs much more than grapes down there. Our wine is not pure rhubarb: sugar and other things are used as well. And one year it was an utter failure. The sugar had been given to a certain damsel to put in, “and ’stead of tendin’ her duty, her were a-talkin’ to that Jarge, and atween’m they put pretty nigh all the sugar in one of they barryels and scarce any in t’other.” Another liquor might be made here, as this soil grows the fungus that is used for Vodka. That liquor is in bad repute just now; but I must say that I found it very comforting on a long and dreary journey from Moscow down to Warsaw in the autumn of 1889. * * * * * My grandfather writes to my father on 3 December 1857:--“A glass of good mellow full-bodied cider is far superior to your Rhenish wine: there is no body in that.” And if Devonshire cider is to be compared with any class of wines, the Rhine wines certainly come closest to it. He thought the very best cider was wasted on the country-folk, and he writes on 18 September 1868:--“They do not much care what it is, so as its cider.” But they cared very much for that. He writes on 16 March 1845:--“The old workmen here think we shall have cider plenty: they think more about that than the crops in the fields.” And again on 17 July 1856:--“As you know, the men here are passionately fond of cider.” He writes to him on 18 June 1851:--“People say that Ashburton Fair is past, and the apples are safe.” People still say that, meaning that all frosts have ceased by the first Thursday in June. But many of these sayings are of earlier date than 1752: the calendar was altered then by cutting out eleven days; and the seasons did not alter with the calendar. Father Christmas should arrive in snow, but seldom has it now: the snow comes with Old Christmas Day in January.