3-074-644 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Apple-gathering and cider-making in Devonshire, 1883. 'A Devon farmhouse; plucking the apples; taking them fast; taking them easy; chopping the apples; the apples mixed with straw cut into shape of a cheese; very good cyder; straining the cyder; pressing the cheese...The apples, when plucked in September or October, are deposited in little heaps beneath the trees of the orchard, as shown in our first Sketch, which shows an old Devonshire farm-house...The farmer's friends have been invited to make a little domestic festival of the apple harvest, and we observe some of the young people "taking it easy," while a boy is loading himself with all that he can carry of the tempting fruit...the apples are...chopped in "the mill"...[and] are then placed on "the dish," a rough tray so called, between layers of straw..., which, with the aid of a huge knife, is pared to a compact shape roughly in the form of a cheese. The dish...is now laid on a huge block of timber...On the top...comes the "valure," into which a powerful screw is inserted, worked by means of a lever...The juice squeezed from the apples is the cider in the rough, but it has yet to be strained by the women, and poured into a vat, where it is left at rest awhile to ferment'. From "Illustrated London News", 1883.