34 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



salts which stimulate various body processes, and that it also 

 contains these anti-scorbutic compounds which are much to 

 be desired. 



It also adds variety to the diet, which is an important factor, 

 because variety is important. We need to pay attention to 

 variety in the selection of our foods and not run to one type of 

 food or to a repetition of the same kinds of food; because we 

 know that if a meal or a dish is pleasing to the sight and is appe- 

 tizing, that the food will be more quickly digested and moie 

 easily utilized by the body. We want variety and a pleasant 

 flavor, and the apple answers both of these requisites, so, 

 unquestionably, we want to advocate a more liberal use of the 

 apple in our diet. It is a food which we, as people in this state, 

 can procure readily and easily, and it is not an expensive item. 

 We often have false ideas of economy. We have to think about 

 the money that we are going to expend, and we ought to think 

 more about the money that we do expend for food, because we 

 spend more for food than any other one item of expenditure 

 in the household. We might often better economize in the' 

 money that we expend for meats and sweets than to economize 

 on the money that we spend for fruits and for vegetables. If 

 we must save money we would better cut down the amount of 

 meat that we serve and the amount of rich desserts and pastries, 

 and substitute plain, simple fruit. 



Fruit should be an article of diet in the winter as well as in 

 the summer ; we should have means of keeping this fruit so that 

 we can use it through the winter months. Apples, generally, 

 keep fairly well, but a certain proportion will not keep when 

 stored during the winter in the cellar. How are we going to 

 utilize this product which is not going to keep? There is a 

 great deal of waste in the apples in this state as well as in others. 

 Canning is one of the best and one of the simplest means ot 

 preserving this food for winter use. We have a number of 

 reasons for canning the fruits and also vegetables, but we should 

 can them first to increase the consumption of the foods which 

 supply the minerals and the acids which I have been talking 

 about ; and we should can them in order that we may lend variety 

 to this monotonous winter diet which a great many of us have 

 when we cannot get the fruits out of the orchard and the vege- 

 tables out of the garden. And then we should can our fruits in 



