Ben Fogle's country travels: the joy of an apple harvest Apples, to me, are what cheese is to Alex James. I don't grow them - I just eat them by the basketful. English apples make the end of summer a cause for celebration and I salivate just thinking about the varieties soon to be harvested. Last week I visited an orchard where the crop is not destined for our mouths in its original appley form. I was at Roger Wilkins's cider farm at Mudgley Hill, near Wedmore, where his family have made Somerset's finest beverage for nearly 100 years. Roger, 65, gestured for me to climb into the bow of one of trees on the steep escarpment above his farm and to shake the branches as hard as I could. A shower of apples rained down on him below. From a distant farm building came the sound of guitar strumming. "That's Mick Jagger's brother, Chris," smiled Roger. Brother Mick often stops by. Roger is something of a celebrity himself in these parts, attracting the likes of Rory Bremner and Jamie Oliver - and, in the past, Sid Vicious - to sample his cider. We bagged up the fallen apples and took them to the old processing factory in a cobweb-strewn barn. Here the apples are pushed through a hydraulic press and pulped to a mush, which travels down a steel shoot and is strained through a nylon cloth. It takes 30 minutes to pass through before being transferred into large barrels where it's left to ferment. Normally cider ferments for four to six weeks. Roger sells about 20,000 gallons a year. Rich in vitamin C, cider was carried aboard Captain Cook's ships to prevent scurvy. I will remember that the next time I sail, row or swim an ocean. Back in the 18th century, farm workers had their pay supplemented by four pints of cider a day and were often rated by how much they could consume. Roger would rate highly. He has been known to drink up to 20 pints a day. Given that he tasted his first cider at the age of six, I reckon he could have drunk around 400,000 pints of the stuff. Many years ago, cider was made at nearly every farm in the area, but now only a few farms produce it. UK cider makers use 250,000 tons of apples each year, 57 per centof the total harvest, creating a cider market worth £3 billion. I made my own small dent in the Wilkins production - and it only renewed my love of the apple.