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Peach Vinegar

Use peaches which are over-ripe. Mash and mix with water in such quantity that the latter is strongly flavoured. To each gallon of this add four ounces brown sugar and a dessertspoon of yeast. Set the cask in the sun to ferment CHAPTER VI THE CHERRY (Prunus cerasus: P. avium) THE HE common garden cherry, (Amygdalacea) the type of daintily gay, merrily modest beauty, of an inspiring, sweet tartness in flavour and of graceful decision of form, is of the brave blitheness of hue generally first noticed by children, which fact, and this alone, is evidently answerable for the nursery song of "Cherries are ripe! Cherries are ripe! Give the baby some"-since, though so attractive, cherries are very nearly the most unfit of all fruits for babies to eat! They have appealed to humanity from time immemorial, from the subtly fragrant blossoms of far Japan which have influenced art itself, to the gayly dangling red clusters of fruit which have always tempted the appetite of small boys of the Occident. The cherry pie has long since been commemorated in the rhyme of the "charming Billy Boy," whose sweetheart could "make a cherry pie quick as you can wink your eye," while a recent coating of immortality has been applied by the present generation in "Cheer up: cherries are ripe!" And cherries have the actual material or physical element and power of cheering up certain kinds of depression, for, aside from from their unvarying cheerfulness of front which might well have a mental effect, this little fruit is considered almost a cure for some forms of bladder and kidney troubles and its "red badge of courage" is also the symbol of the remarkable tonic properties of the tree whose bark has become famous on the continent of North America as "bitters" and phosphates, etc. These bracing decoctions, as well as the alcoholic, deluding "Cherry Bounce" are, in general, manufactured from the North American wild black cherry, Prunus serotina, and the American wild Choke Cherry, Prunus Virginiana, which has the power of "calming irritation and diminishing excitabilityadapted theoretically to diseases in which debility of the stomach or of the system is united with general or local irritation" (U. S. Dispensatory).

The wild cherry of Europe and England, called in the latter country the "gean," is a source of valued food supplies to German and French country folk. Brandies, jellies, and other drinks or dishes are made from this cherry, and from all varieties beverages, chiefly alcoholic, are distilled. Of the latter Maraschino and Kirschwasser are the best known though a kind of Ratafia is also made from the cherry and in Turkey Créme de Noyeau is flavoured with the Oriental Mahaleb cherry pits instead of almond, peach, or apricot kernels. Maraschino is made at and about Zara, the capital of Dalmatia, where the pulp of the Marasca cherries, or Marazques, is mixed with honey and sugar or honey is added when distilling the liqueur, and the greatest care in every way is taken with the distillation. Kirschwasser is the German fermented drink from cherries, and "Cherry Bounce" the American.

The cherry, like the muskmelon and nutmeg, seems to have been introduced from Asia into Italy by Lucullus -about 70 B. C., and later was taken by the Romans to England. Whether red, black, yellow, or white, the cherry has always been a favourite but it must be fully matured and sweetened before it can be properly eaten since its type of acidity, while medicine to kidneys and bladder, is not welcomed by stomachs which are weak, and will quickly disorder both stomach and bowels if under-ripe and is also uncooked.

Cherry wood has a virtue of its own in addition to its beauty for casks made of it are said to give the finest flavour to liquors kept therein. As for the tree itself, of dimly ancient line, it has been made a particular pet by the youngest of nations from neither beauty of blossom, fruit, wood, nor medicinal value, but because Americans are equally patriots and humourists from the cradle and the cherry, linked indissolubly with that first of American nursery tales, of George Washington and his hatchet, has become a literal "family tree."