3-053-471 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Cider-making in Normandy, 1873. '...cider is the wine of an extensive fruit-growing district on the shores of the Channel...The making of cider is a process requiring skill and care, but more especially in controlling the fermentation after the juice of the apples has been drawn off into casks. Before this stage of the manufacture the crushing of the apples to pulp, called "must," and squeezing of the juice out of the must, are performed by very simple machinery, as is shown in our Engraving of an apple-mill. This consists of a circular stone trough, 18 ft. in diameter, with a heavy round grindstone, which is set upright in the trough, and which is trundled around the circle by a horse or other animal, harnessed to the moving beam above. The apples, placed in the trough, should be so completely ground as to reduce the rind and the core to pulp, and to break the seed-pips; a handful of must, when squeezed in the fist, ought to pass out between the fingers. It is then poured, a thick sticky mass, upon cloths, or upon layers of straw, which are piled on each other, and are so placed together in the cider- press. The juice is left standing awhile in tubs or vats, but is transferred to other vessels for the critical fermenting process'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.