Perry is made in much the same way as cider, and when due care has been taken in its manufacture, it is a most delicious and wholesome drink.  When bottled and kept to mature it pours out with a beautiful creaming head, and is far superior to ordinary champagne.  Both cider and perry should be drunk out of a china or earthenware mug, whence they taste much richer than from glass; but my men always used in the field a small horn cup or “tot,” holding about quarter of a pint.  I have a very interesting old cider cup, of Fulham or Lambeth earthenware I think, holding about a quart, with three handles, each of which is a greyhound with body bent to form the loop for the hand.  It was intended for the use of three persons sitting together at a small three-cornered oak table, specimens of which are still, though rarely, met with at furniture sales in farm-houses or cottages; the cup was placed in the middle, and each person could take a pull by using his particular handle with the adjacent place for his lips, without passing the cup round or using the same drinking space as another.

There are numerous kinds of perry pears, but certain sorts have a great reputation, such as Moorcroft, Barland, Malvern Hills, Longdon, Red Horse, Mother Huff Cap, and Chate Boy (cheat boy), a particularly astringent pear; these are all small, and require quickly grinding when gathered.  In the New Forest there is a perry pear similar to the Chate Boy, called Choke Dog, which in its natural state, is quite as rough on the palate as the former, but it differs in colour and is not the same sort.  I had a splendid specimen of the Chate Boy pear-tree at an outlying set of buildings, said to be the father of all the trees of that kind in the neighbourhood, and it was a landmark for miles, as it stood on high ground.  It was fitted with a ladder reaching to the middle of the tree, where seats were arranged on a platform for eight or nine people; but it was unfortunately blown down on the night of the great gale of October 14, 1877, when twelve other trees on the farm were likewise overthrown.

Cider and perry drinkers were said to be more or less immune from many human ailments, including rheumatic affections, though one would expect the acetic acid they contain, unless very carefully made, would have an opposite effect.  Certainly my men suffered neither from gout nor rheumatism, and there was a tradition that in 1832, when the cholera was rife in the country, the plague was stayed as soon as the cider districts were approached.

These noble old pear-trees are a great feature of the Vale of Evesham, especially in the more calcareous parts where the lias limestone is not far from the surface; they are exquisite in spring in clouds of pure white blossoms long before the apples are in bloom; in the autumn the foliage presents every tint of crimson, green and gold all softly subdued, and in winter, when the framework of the tree can be seen, it is noticeable how far the massive limbs extend, carrying their girth almost to the summit, in a way that not even the oak can excel.  The timber is short in the grain, and wears smooth in the long wood ploughs, and is very suitable for carving quite small and elaborate patterns for such articles as picture frames; but it is somewhat liable to the attack of the woodworm.