Pommage: a history of cider in Jersey

Pommage: A history of cider in Jersey This article by J G Speer was first published in the Annual Bulletin of La Société Jersiaise in 1970

Gathering the crop at Le Douet, St John, in 1912

16th to 19th Centuries

From the middle of the 16th century until at least the Great War apple growing and cider making played a very important part in Jersey life.

In the 17th century corn growing was being replaced by apple cultivation to such an extent that in 1673 the States passed an Act that forbade the planting of orchards except in replacement of old ones.

Practically nothing now remains of the cider apple orchards which were to be seen near every farmhouse. Over many years Frank Le Maistre, collected the names and recorded the qualities of scores of varieties of apples that were grown in these orchards and these have been published in several of the Bulletins of L'Assembliee d'Jerriais.

The purpose of this article is not to give a technical description of the process of making cider, which can be found in great detail in several of the books referred to below, but to record and preserve the names and descriptions of some of the apples grown in Jersey for cider making and to give some idea of the part it played in the economy of the island.

From at least the middle of the 15th century, cider seems to have been drunk in Jersey, although for a considerable time it was imported from Normandy. The list of payments made at Mont Orgueil Castle for stores in 1469 includes a number to merchants of Caen for varying amounts of cider.

Sixty years later, the Commissioners who visited the Castle on 15 September 1531 recorded evidence from Laurens Mallet that there were in the Castle two and a half pipes of cider brought from Normandy

Cider from Normandy

The planting of orchards and the making of cider in Jersey must have grown rapidly from this time, as B J R Blench wrote:

"The increased profit from orchards and cider making was the main stimulous to the increase of enclosures, thought to be almost complete by 1625, and the changing emphasis from corn growing to apple cultivation".

By the 1670s, not only was Jersey exporting large quantities of cider to England, but the import of cider and apples for the making of it from Normandy was prohibited.

"In 1676 there happened a difference touching excise demanded upon cyder imported from Jersey, and it was decided by his Majesty in Council that the inhabitants of these Islands, (being noe foreigners) ought to be as free from paying excise for cyder or perry, of tbe growth of those islands imported into England or Wales as the inhabitants of His Majesty's other islands are, or have been, for goods and merchandise of their growth imported by them into England or Wales".

A petition in 1679 to Charles II from the Bailiff and Jurats, complaining of the irregular conduct of the Governor, John Lannier, refers among other things to this order:

A cider press, with an apple crusher partly in view in the foreground. The granite trough apple crushers, most often found out of doors, are frequently referred to as 'cider presses', but this is incorrect. They are used for crushing the apples and the resultant pulp is then compressed in an indoor press to release the apple juice. However, the names are further complicated by the use of the term pressoir ronde for the apple crusher in France

1679 petition

"There had been an order passed by the Three Estates, the Governor being present, to prevent an abuse very prejudicial to this Island by the importation of Normandy apples and cider, a commodity too much abounding already with us, and which cannot be permitted without violating ye liberty wee enjoy by your Majesties favour, of transporting cider of our own growth into England, and for tbat cause ye prohibition has been made very strict under forfeiture and fine. Notwithstanding which strictness ye then Governor, to show ye he was Solitus legibus, and could dispense thereof at pleasure the very same evening did sign two licences of importing great quantities of Norman apples, one to Ensigne Montais, a Jersey gent, and ye other to a merchant and did since offer to give ye like permission to any that would aske it.

"But this is little in comparison of what was done afterwards before ye Sunne, in deffiance of yor Maties Court. Fifty or three score hogsheads of Normandy cider landed at a time, and unloaded at ye Gate of Castle Montorgueil, not for provision of your garrison, but to be retailed there by ye pot and sold out by small barills and rondlets to ye neighbouring Parishes.

"Many of us have seen with our eyes that Castle and ye Avenues to it replenished with all sorts and sexes of people drinking even to excesse and drunkenesse of ye said Sider, three or four hundred at once, chiefly upon Sundays and during Divine Service. And whereas in former times soldiers were not permitted to keep an Ale-House, though never

soe orderly, in our times ye Governor and Deputy doe not only permitt them freely to exercise that vacation throughout ye whole Island, but moreover they prostituted yr Maties garrisons, especially Montorgueil and ye Tower at St. Aubins to that sordid occupation and made them, (as far as in them lyes), comon Tippling Houses, to ye noe little scandall ofyr Maties Service".

From this time onwards every writer about Jersey refers to the importance of cider production. Poingdestre's Caesarea of 1682 says:

"There is hardly a house in the island, except in St Helier, that did not have an orchard of from one to two vergees sufficient to produce an average of 20 hogsheads a year". (One hogshead of cider or beer=54 gallons).

Shortage of barrels

Supply and demand varied widely. In 1680 it was said that there were not enough barrels in the island to take all and, great quantities of apples rotted. In other years hardly enough cider was produced for local demand.

The life of a cider apple tree was then estimated at 30-40 years so a gradual replacement of trees went on all the time.

Falle, in his History of Jersey, first published in 1692, wrote:

"I do not think there is any country in the world that (in the same extent of ground) produces so much cider as Jersey does, not even Normandy itself. Many of our orchards are planted something in the imitation of the famous Quincunx and all of them in an order that gives them a beauty beyond what I have observed in Gloscester or Herefordshire, where appears littel exactness in the position and mutual aspect of the trees. Nor is there better, larger and more generous fruit than what grows in this island; but we have it in such plenty (notesome single trees have been known to produce a tun, or four hogsheads) that it is not possible that we should be as nice in gathering it, and improving afterwards by art that sea of liquor that is drawn from it, than are others who have less. The common practise is to mingle all, sweet, and sour, too often; ripe and green confusedly together.

"Where gentlemen are curious for their own drinking and cull the'choicest of fruit, then rack and bottle the cider as is done in England, it yields in nothing to the celebrated Redstreak, or, rather, surpasses it, in that it has more body. We find by experience that the best fruit for eating is not the best for cider. We prefer the bittersweet to all other, but the cider requires more time in refining".

In 1801 the Rev Francois Le Couteur, then Rector of Grouville, published the first of several editions of his Apercu sur Les Cidres, in which he gave careful directions, based on his own experiments, for the planning, planting and care of cider orchards as well as for the making and storage of cider. He estimated production in an average year at 30,000 to 35,000 barrels, of which 20,000 were consumed locally and the rest exported.

He was the first to mention any varieties of apple by name, although he said it was impossible to decide which produce the best cider since this depends to such a great extent on the amount of sunshine, the aspect, the age of the trees and so on. He continued:

"L'Ameret au Gentilhomme has been praised, Redstreak was popular, many now go for Romeril, Lucas and Lomey".

An indoor apple crusher

Thomas Quayle

In 1815 Thomas Quayle wrote:

"Jersey cider is in great esteem and has become a leading article among its exports. One-fourth part of its arable land is computed to be occupied by apple trees, most extensively in the parishes of St Martin, Grouville, St Clement and St Saviour.

"Apple trees of various descriptions are cultivated, some of French origin, some English, and some of native produce. Much the greater part are grafted at home on seedling stocks, but some on slips of those species of apple tree which are propagated in that manner. Many are imported from England, principally from the west, of the description of use in Somersetshire, by careful cultivators extraordinary pains are taken in digging holes for planting, by some persons holes are sunk to the depth of five feet and a layer of green furze laid at the bottom, to keep the ground loose and open during the first two years".

This is exactly the method of planting recommended by Mr Le Couteur in his work referred to above. Quayle goes on:

"The cider apple most generally favoured at present is a native species and bears the name of Romeril, from a family of that name in the island, by whom it was first grafted from the wild stock. It grows from cuttings, is a late blossomer but an abundant and certain bearer. The fruit is round and rather large when ripe, of a yellowish colour marked with red; its juice sweet and the lees produced abundant. As a baking apple it is also esteemed and keeps till April.

"The next in esteem is the Lamine, also a late blossomer. These two species are rarely blighted. The Noir-toit, a sweet fruit, and the Gros-Amer, rather bitter, are all Jersey apples, valued on account of their size and being good bearers. The Pain-Sauce, Rogneux and the Frechen or Frequin, a bitter-sweet apple, are also natives of Jersey, of esteemed quality but bad bearers. The Ameret-aux-Gentilshommes also answers the same description and ripens late. Each of these is still grown, but in small quantities ; their fruit is mixed with the others, in order to give quality".

Plees, in An Account of the Island of Jersey, (1817) wrote:

"Of wintry fruits, the permain, which in England is principally applied to culinary purposes, and seldom lasts for any length of time, is here a very good eating apple also, and reckoned to keep longer than any other; whereas the Russeting, which in England is considered the best store apple, is in Jersey but little esteemed and soon decays.

"The chief produce, however, of the island is cider, of which about 24,000 hogsheads annually are manufactured and of which nearly 1800 hogsheads (average of 5 years 1809-1813) are exported to England. This liquor is the common beverage of Jersey, but the farmers are seldom very nice in assorting their fruit, so that the different kinds are mixed together and the damaged apples are often not separated. The cider retailed in St Helier is in general detestable, though the regulations respecting it are very strict. There have of late years been two cider manufactories established, and from these the liquor is excellent".

French visitors

Although Normandy is the chief cider producing area in France and Le Couteur, in his Apercu referred to above, suggests that cider apple growing came to Jersey from there, in 1856 La Societe Centrale Agriculture de la Seine Inferieure was so dissatisfied with every aspect of cider production in that area that it sent J Giradin and J Moriere to study apple growing and cider making in Jersey.

Their report gives full details of the process of cider-making as carried out in Jersey at that time. The best managed orchards and the heaviest crops of all that they saw were found at Mainland, St Lawrence, then farmed by Moise Gibaut. They declared that never, anywhere in Normandy, had they drunk cider so delicious as that made at Mainland. They consulted several authorities about apple varieties and the following recommendations should be recorded:

By Col Le Couteur, Belle Vue, St Aubin-Rumril, Arseul, Museau-de-Boeuf, Ambroise-Capital, Stone-Pippin, Amer-doux-blanc, Vermilion; Quarre or Carre, Pepin Jacob, Doux-Cape, Frequin or Frais-Chien, Lait Doux, Pepin la Tenue, Coccagee, Golden Pippin.

Col Mourant, of Samares Manor, gives in addition Le Doux Eveque, Mauget, sour, De Bretagne, sweet, Aumone, sweet, very good, Lamey, sweet.

Mr Gibaut, already mentioned, recommended also Petit Jean, very productive as well as suitable for eating; Tete-de-Chat, which resembles Reinette Grise; L'Aumone and Rouge-Ameret.

The authors conclude, not surprisingly, that the most popular varieties are those which at the same time sell well in England and also make good cider. The best fruit was exported and the remainder used for cider. In this connection it may be noted that in 1853, 142,240 gallons of cider and 99,715 bushels of apples were exported. In the following year the figures were 89,790 gallons of cider and 179,676 bushels of apples, a curious reversal.

At this point it is appropriate to remark that the appearance of some of these apples has been preserved for us in the exquisite album of paintings of fruit by Harrriet Le Couteur, the wife of Col, later Sir John, Le Couteur, of Belle Vue, St. Aubin, which is referred to in Victorian Voices by Joan Stevens. One of the apples mentioned above, Petit Jean, is included in a coloured plate in this work.

A traditional cider press. Layers of crushed apples are pressed to release the juice

Essay competition

In 1858 the Royal Agricultural Society of England offered a prize for an essay on The Agriculture of the Islands of Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and Sark. The winning essay, by C P Le Cornu, was published in full in the Society'S Journal for 1859, but gives little space to apple cultivation or cider making, although it lists the following:

Noir Binet, Petit Jean, Limon, Bretagne, de France, Romeril, Frai Chien, Amer, Pepin Jacob and Carre. Highly commended by the judges was a report by F F Dally, of Guernsey and published in that island as a pamphlet.

The following lines are relevant:

"Any treatise on the islands would be incomplete without reference to their extensive growth of apples and their conversion into cider. Jersey especially has its more classified order of trees, for combining their vatieties of flavour, to the effect of producing cider of superior quality. Many shiploads of apples are annually exported to Devonshire, for the purpose of being mixed with the fruit grown there, in order to impart to the Devonshite cider the finer character of the Jersey fruit".

He then gave a list of varieties of apples, supplied to him by Col Le Couteur, which is the same as that given by Le Cornu above, with the addition of one called Pepin-la-Tenue and the comment that Coccagee is said to be the best apple of Hereford and Devon.

A Study of Cider-Making in France, Germany and England, by William Alwood, a vice-director of the United States Bureau of Agriculture, is worth consulting as it lists many names of apples which are interesting for comparison. Some of the French varieties could well be the same as those grown in Jersey. The twelve best in the cider making districts of France, mainly Normandy and Brittany, selected by l'Association Francaise Pomologique are: Blanc-Mallet, Reine des Hatives, St Laurent, Bramtot, Omont, Doux-Normandie, Rousse, Ambrette, Argile, Bedan, Doux-Geslin and Marabot.

A further list contains several names that are the same as, or closely resemble, some Jersey varieties Amere, Binet Blanc or Dore, Binet Rouge, Binet Violet, Doux-AmerGris, Frequin-Audievre, Frequin-Lajoye, Frequin-Lacaille.

When he came to cider making in England, Alwood wrote:

"There is a large group of apples cultivated in England for cider, the names of which are made up of some English word prefixed to the word 'Norman' or 'Jersey', as Cherry Norman, Broad-Leaf Norman, Chisel Jersey, Red Jersey, etc. These apples all possess the peculiar bitter-sweet taste that characterises so distinctly many of the most famous French apples".

He then listed the top ten in England as Blenheim Orange, Broadleaf, Cherry Norman, Chisel Jersey, White Jersey, Foxwhelp, Kingston Black, New Cadbury, Red Jersey, Butleigh No 14.

There seems to be no relationship between these names and the French and Jersey varieties already listed. Yet the addition of "Jersey" and "Norman" to so many of them suggests that they may have originated in those two places. It is to be noted that Coccagee, so highly praised by some of our earlier authorities, did not appear here.

The quantity of cider exported from Jersey varied widely from year to year, presumably affected by the crop harvested. The average remained fairly steady from the beginning of the 19th Century until about 1855, after which there was a steady fall until the 1870s, when it almost ceased. In 1804 it was, in round figures, 65,000 gallons, in 1806, 185,000 gallons; for the years 1852-1855 it averaged 150,000 gallons, but just over ten years later it had dropped to 35,000 gallons and by 1874 was only 4,000 and in 1875, the last year in which cider was recorded, it was only 2,880 gallons.

At the same time, it is significant that the export of potatoes was growing steadily, rising from 4,000 tons in 1866 to 20,000 tons in 1874 and 28,000 in 1875. Comparative figures for apples were, in 1855 100,000 bushels; 1856, 180,000 bushels; 1866, 170,000 bushels; 1867, 76,000 bushels.

After 1870 the export of apples was not recorded separately from other fruit. But one point of interest is that for some years from 1880 onwards 30-40,000 gallons of vinegar were exported annually.

Frank Le Maistre

A very large number of names of apples and pears grown in Jersey have been collected over a lifetime by Frank Le Maistre and recorded by him in the Jersey language in Le Bulletin d'Quart d'An de L'Assernbliee d'Jerriais. In his last article in 1954 he wrote that several people had asked him to give descriptions of the various apples and pears (the earlier issues record names only) and this he did.

First he wrote about a Jerseyman who had been the source of most of his information in 1935. This was the late John Dorey of Le Douet, St John, whom he describes as "the king of cider makers and exporters in the early years of this century" and the accompanying photograph, given by Mr Dorey, shows Le Douet in the first week of November 1912.

More than 1,100 barrels of cider (of 120 pots each, 1 pot being equal to 2 litres) were produced on this farm and this, as Mr Maistre said, was "no small beer". At that time cider was drunk with every meal on certain farms but the first World War ended that custom. Then follows a description of sixty-six named varieties of apples, most of which were used for cider making and many for cooking and eating as well, with a note saying that many, if not most, can no longer be found growing anywhere in Jersey. Some of them were included in reports written over a century ago and quoted earlier in this paper.

The list supplied for this article by Mr Le Maistre is included on a separate page