At ordinary household refrigerator temperatures this syrup-like cider will keep perfectly for a month or six weeks, and if kept at low temperatures in cold storage will keep for prolonged periods. At ordinary house temperatures it, of course, will keep a shorter time.
To make the concentrated syrup, the cider mill must add to its equipment an ice-making machine and centrifugal machinery, so that the process is not practicable on a small scale. The specialists are hopeful, however, that the commercial test soon to be inaugurated in Oregon will show that it will be possible for apple growers to concentrate their excess cider and ship it profitably to the far South or to other non-producing regions. The specialists also believe that it will enable apple producers to prolong the market for cider.—U. S. Dept. of Agri., Oct., 1914.
How Mr. Mansfield Grows Tomatoes.
MRS. JENNIE STAGER, SAUK RAPIDS.
Somewhere around 1870 Mr. Wm. Mansfield, of Johnsons Creek, Wis., commenced to apply what Gov. Hoard, of Wisconsin, told him was "persevering intelligence," to the propagating and improving of the tomato, and he soon found out that the tomato was capable of almost unlimited improvement. He has made a specialty of the tree tomato, of which he says he has demonstrated to the world that in the Mansfield tree tomato he has produced one of the greatest wonders of the age. All who have seen them, tasted or grown them, with even a small degree of good sense, are loud in their praise for their good qualities: wonderful growth of tree, beauty of fruit, smoothness, solidity, flavor, earliness, etc.
In giving directions how to grow them he says you should remember that if your brightest child is raised among Indians he is not likely to become president. Neither will the tree tomato if thrown on a brush pile, or just stuck in a poor, dry place and left to care for itself, be ready to jump on your table, on the Fourth of July, or any other month, a ripe, delicious, two-pound tomato.
He says first get your seed of some reliable person, who can warrant it pure and all right. Then at the proper time, which in this climate would be some time in March, get some rich old earth for boxes in your house, hotbeds or greenhouse. Sow the seed, cover lightly, wet down every day and keep warm, with all the sun possible. When up ten days transplant to other boxes, six inches apart, and not less than four inches deep. Keep wet and give all the light and sun you can, and by the time it is safe to set them outside they should stand from twelve to twenty-four inches in height, with bodies half an inch thick.
To prepare the ground.—First select a place as near water as possible, and also, if you can, let your rows run east and west. Throw out dirt two spades deep, then put in three or four inches of night soil if you can get it, if not use hen manure and wood ashes, equal parts, or some other strong manure, in the bottom of trench. Then fill up the trench with the best dirt you can get, mixed with well rotted stable manure, as no fresh manure must come near the roots or bark to rot them.