1903 The Flowing Bowl by Edward Spencer

178 THE FLOWING BOWL the manufacture of cider. The good Rhine wine, and the flowing and flatulent lager of their own country, were good enough for the Teutonic palate. But when it comes to a question of making money, with the risk reduced to a minimum, Germany seldom "gets left," as the Yankees say. Some of the inhabitants of the Fatherland discovered, about two decades ago, that there was gelt in cider, and since that time apples have been imported from France, by train-loads, for the purpose of being converted into cider. Germany now exports nearly twelve times as much of this fascinating beverage as does France ; and under whatever name it may figure in the bills—German Champagne, Mili tary Port, Apfel-wein, or Sparkling Hock—away goes the apple juice to all parts of the civilized world, including Damascus, Pekin, Khartoum, San Francisco, and Shaftesbury Avenue. In Frankfort-on-the-Maine alone there are more than fifty cider-factories, and the industry brings the town at least half a million sterling per annum. "The fruits of the earth," says the ancient chronicler quoted above, " and especially of trees, were the first food ordained for man to eat." And yet I had always understood that it was for eating an apple that our first parents were evicted from the garden. But to continue the quotation. " And by eating of which (before flesh became his meat) he lived to a far greater age than since any have been observed to have lived. And of all the fruits our Northern parts produce, there's none more edible, nor more wholesome than Apples;