the bottom was a platform grooved in channels; a sheaf of clean straw
was spread on the platform, and with wooden shovels the pomace was
spread thick over it. Then a layer of straw was laid at right angles
with the first, and more pomace, and so on till the form was about three
feet high; the top board was put on as a cover; the screw turned and
blocks pressed down, usually with a long wooden hand-lever, very slowly
at first, then harder, until the mass was solid and every drop of juice
had trickled into the channels of the platform and thence to the pan
below. Within the last two or three years I have seen those cider-mills
at work in the country back of old Plymouth and in Narragansett, sending
afar their sourly fruity odors. And though apple orchards are running
out, and few new trees are planted, and the apple crop in those
districts is growing smaller and smaller, yet is the sweet cider of
country cider-mills as free and plentiful a gift to any passer-by as the
water from the well or the air we breathe. Perry was made from pears,
as cider is from apples, and peachy from peaches. Metheglin and mead,
drinks of the old Druids in England, were made from honey, yeast, and
water, and were popular everywhere. In Virginia whole plantations of the
honey-locust furnished locust beans for making metheglin. From
persimmons, elderberries, juniper berries, pumpkins, corn-stalks,
hickory nuts, sassafras bark, birch bark, and many other leaves, roots,
and barks, various light drinks were made. An old song boasted:--

"Oh, we can make liquor to sweeten our lips
Of pumpkins, of parsnips, of walnut-tree chips."

Many other stronger and more intoxicating liquors were made in large
quantities, among them enormous amounts of rum, which was called often
"kill-devil." The making of rum aided and almost supported the
slave-trade in this country. The poor negroes were bought on the coast
of Africa by New England sea-captains and merchants and paid for with
barrels of New England rum. These slaves were then carried on
slave-ships to the West Indies, and sold at a large profit to planters
and slave-dealers for a cargo of molasses. This was brought to New
England, distilled into rum, and sent off to Africa. Thus the circle of
molasses, rum, and slaves was completed. Many slaves were also landed
in New England, but there was no crop there that needed negroes to raise
it. So slavery never was as common in New England as in the South, whe