Part 38 (1/2)
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 quant.i.ties. 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 inters.p.a.ces.
Here, then, the fruit is placed in lines over the inters.p.a.ces, the object being thus to secure a free pa.s.sage 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 quant.i.ty, 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 quant.i.ty 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 quant.i.ty, 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 inc.u.mbent 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 furnis.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.sign 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 circ.u.mstance 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 ma.s.s, 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.