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.
We say _sound_ fruit, for it is useless to put spotted and worm-eaten
apples or pears in the keeping-room. These had better be put by and used
as soon as possible for whatever purpose they may be fit, for whenever
the air can get into the interior of fruit by reason of abrasions,
borings, &c., decay soon sets in; and now, while we are writing, we have
a quantity of apples with the plague-spot of rottenness proceeding from
their being “worm-eaten.”
2. In storing dessert apples these directions are even more important.
If, then, the farm should produce one or several sorts in quantity, if
they are to be disposed of, we would advise their sale to the fruiterer
with the onus of gathering and managing them. Small farmers sometimes
make no bad addition to their income by thus disposing of fine fruits,
and we always advise that such should be planted to a greater extent
than is usually done about farm homesteads. It is not a heavy matter for
the landlord to find a few sorts of choice fruit-trees for his smaller
or even larger holdings, and, by thus adding to the comfort or even
luxuries of his tenants, he will be benefiting not only himself but the
country at large. We believe it to be a duty incumbent upon the landed
proprietor thus to foster a love of fruits, and we honour the names of
Knight, of Downton, and Williams, of Pitmaston, in that they loved to
propagate new fruits, and to encourage their dissemination. It is said
by Mr. Benjamin Maund, the author of “The Fruitist”:—
A propagator of apple and pear trees from seeds may be supposed to
possess not only patience, but a desire to benefit posterity.
Twelve or fourteen years cast a long shadow before them; and when,
after waiting this length of time, the uncertain value of the
substance is considered, it must be confessed that men deserve more
than praise, who originate new fruits. Apple trees rarely show the
real quality of their fruit in less than fourteen years. All,
however, who have the convenience of doing so, should raise
seedling trees; for it is to these only that we can look with any
degree of confidence for permanently furnishing our orchards, and
not to old or cankering varieties.
It is true that it is not within the province of all, even of the
permanent owners of the soil, thus to add to the number of Pomona’s
gifts, but all can inquire for and purchase esteemed sorts; and no
tenant that is worth having will grudge them care and attention, be his
tenure ever so precarious.
We would assign to the lords of the soil the duty of improving
fruit-trees, while the gentleman who resides in the country, it may be
for only a short season, should make the best use of it to encourage a
love for the garden, and to increase its various attractions to charm
the eye, and to increase and vary the vegetable food of the people.
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.)
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.