PERRY PEARS.
The history of perry and cider is interesting. They were both peculiarly popular in the Napoleonic wars, when the need of grain for food depressed the making of beer ; and a good many of the old pear trees date from this period. At a yet earlier date cider was sent in large quantities from the West Country to London, till a scare arose from a case or two of poisoning due to the use of millstones from France, which happened to have lead centres, and these—as a Royal Commission discovered—were acted on by the acid in the apple juice. It took years for the industry to recover from this accident. There are records of cider making in Norfolk as well as the western counties from as far back as the twelfth century ; and there is rivalry between East and West as to which has the oldest history. To-day the growing popularity of cider is reviving the orchard devoted to cider apples ; and one firm at any rate—in Hereford—is for the first time giving farmers the chance of planting orchards at a cheap rate. Only the hostility of the brewers pret ents a very rapid increase in this form of fruit farming, which may yield a good 144 an acre, and cider apples are singularly easy and cheap to gather.
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