Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 285, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 December 1910 — GOOD APPLE BUTTER [ARTICLE]

GOOD APPLE BUTTER

Snitzing Party Period Is Now a Thing of the Past. Modern Methode of Manufacture Have Robbed Pennsylvania Farmers | es Delightful Frolics Held In the Fall.

'’Garfield, Pa. —During September and October of each year all roads In Berks county lead to the cider and •apple butter mills, for this Is the season when everybody has more apples that he needs for winter use. There Is no farming community in Berks county today that does not have its community cider mill, where farmers can take their apples In the morning and return with the cider a few kours later, but there are only two or three places in this great agricultural county where the farmer can so speedily turn his fruit Into nice, fresh apple butter. Marvelous as It appears to grandmother, who used to sit in the old farmhouse kitchen with her little Barrow knife, peeling the rinds off the red cheeked apples, paring them next morning in the barrel-sized copper ikettle to be cooked into- apple butter, It still appears more marvelous to the mother of twenty-five years ago, to whom the apple butter party was "‘the time of the year.” She can "hardly realize today that those good old times are passing away. “What a change!” says mother. "Today we pick the apples; tomorrow Tatber starts for the cider mill at 6 o’clock. The apples are shoveled into « grinding machine, ground Into pom■*ce and shoveled to one of the latest ■style hydraulic presses, from which ’the juice Is extracted In a very few minutes, ready for the apple butter -cooking, under the same roof. The ■cider is then cooked and boiled in Targe barrel-shaped receptacles, the ssteam running through copper coils ithat nicely fit in barrels.

The sweet apples the farmer just brings along from the tree, and there Is no snttzlng party on the farm beforehand. They are brought entire, and are first nicely washed, then Placed tn a barrel, cooked by steam «intil they form a thin, mushy paste. "Then they are placed in a copper sievelike instrument, over which is ■operated a rubber lever which separates the skin from the apples, cores ■and seeds, so nothing but pure apple juice goes into the apple butter. This xilcely sieved pulp and the boiling older are placed together in another barrel, the spices are added, and within forty-five minutes the steam that Tuns through another set of copper oolls will have accomplished the trick and the apple butter will be ready to pour into the farmer's milk cans or crocks in which he usually hauls It home. The first apple butter cooking factory in Berks county was installed by ex-County Treasurer David W. MoX®l and today be and his son, John F. Mogel, make cider and cook apple butter four days each week for the fanners of the community, and each Saturday cook It for themselves, to «fll to other folks. When the farmer sets his apples turned Into cider he pays only a cent a gallon. For apple Ibutter he pays fifteen cents extra per

gallon, and, while it takes four gallons of cider for a gallon of apple butter, the only outlay in cash is the nineteen cents a gallon, except what he pays for the spices. For every barrel of cider he needs two bushels of nice sweet apples. The ordinary cooking for a family consists of two barrels of cider and four bushels ot apples, and the result Is twenty gallons of apple butter. If the farmer preferred to sell the apple butter he can realize from sixty cents to one dollar a gallon—twice as much as he could get for the apple butter that was made during the “snltzlng party” period. The Mogels have made as high as 88,000 gallons of cider and 4,000 gallons of apple butter In a season. The high mark for one day was 123 barrels of cider and 240 gallons of apple butter. During the busy season they work day and night. «_