, 1891-01-31
SWEET APPLE CIDER.

Tie Old and the New Methods OF En-
tracing the Juice.
''The sight of q key of sweet cider on
the counter is more frequent in city res
tsurants nowadays than it was a dozen
years ago. A piece of pumpkin pie and
a glass of saccharine apple Juice doubt
less appeal to the country bred tastes Of
many a grizzled merchant and busy
clerk, and call up recollections of rude
old country cider mills and the great vats
of amber liquor into which they once
inserted the potent rye straw. Or pos
sibly the pretty girl washing glasses at
the counte reminds them OF some coun-
try Pomona such as John Keats drew in
his poem OF Autumn" who loved TO sit
beside a cider press land watch the last
slow oozings, hour by hour"
The romantic old time cider mill is
being rapidly supplanted by the more
thorough and trustworthy modern sort.
In the old one the apples were often
ground by horse power. But mos fire.
quently the cider mill was pitched beside
a mail stream, the power of which, half
wasted on a great ''overshot" wheel. was
made to do the grinding. Often the
supply Of water would fail, or the dam
or other c~ontrivances give way, and then
there was a great temptation to water
the cider to make up for lost time while
waiting for the dam to fill up. The
pressing was done generally by an up
right screw into which iron bars were
thrust and pushed around by brawny
arms. The writer has seen a broad back
ed Dutch woman helping her husband at
this arduous work.
The modern cider mill, however,
shows by the puffs of steam that it does
not depend on dams. To be sure, there
may be a dam a foot high in the neigh
boring ~ravine, a fall of water enough to
work a hydraulic ram and feed the
boiler. The grinder ~revolves at a rate
which makes the building hum. The
ground apple, o rpulp, falls down through
the floor n canvas sacks, which are
hastily closed and laid in a tier of a
dozen on the platform of the hydraulic
press. Then down comes the cover with
irresistible power, and the essence of the
apple gurgles into the vat. From here a
pump, also propelled by steam, forces
the liquid up into "a large vat, from
which it can be drawn into barrels by
turning a spigot. In old times the load
ing of a barrel of cider, weighing over
400 pounds, occupied the close attention
of several brawny men, as they rolled 1t
up a pair of ''skids," with a concert of
'heave ons." But now a pair of barrel
tongs, a rope thrown over a windlass,
having a large wheel for the hand o
and the muscle of one man lifts the bar
rel and swings it into the wagon.
1t is a strong argument for the sweet
cider drinker that the pomace left after
pressing is absolutely worthless as a food
for anything or as a fertilizer. The
virtue of the apple must therefore go
with the juice.
The best cider is that made late in the
season from the best matured fruit.
Cold weather also conduces to its keep
ing well. Russet apples make about the
finest cider in the market, and it will
bring an extra price. Some other va
%rieties, Newtown pippins or crab apples,
make very fine thick cider. II properly
worked, cleared of pomace, and kept
air tight in clean new barrels, it will
keep all winter as rich and pleasant as a
sherry wine, while, Of course, less al
coholic and 80 less harmless.
The pleasure of Sucking cider through
a straw" is not always attainable, as
straws are not everywhere convenient at
hand. An excellent substitute for the
straw is a stick of Observation-Disclosures
Dispatch.