C4 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



I have been on the Viewing Committee at our Comity Fair for several years, 

 and in the canned fruit department. While there I had a good chance to learn 

 how this is done. I find most of the fruit there is not sweetened at all, and 

 but imperfectly cooked in order to have it keep whole, and make a good show. 

 Last year several cans bubbled over, and had to be removed, and on examina- 

 tion they were found to be not cooked at all, just put into cold water just for 

 the occasion. Several years ago there was vended about the country solutions 

 (of what I do not know), that were warranted to keep fruit without excluding 

 the air or sealing. I remember only one of them by name, and that was 

 Spear's Solution. I think I tasted some once that was preserved in this way, 

 and though the fruit was whole and well kept, still *the taste of the chemicals 

 (for such I think it must have been) was to me very unpleasant. 



I really wish there was more fruit canned, not just enough for company, but 

 enoygh that it might be put upon the table three times in a day. Put it up 

 for yourselves, for your boys and your girls. I think children have a natural 

 craving for fruit. I have seen boys that would eat a good hearty breakfast in 

 the winter time, then go to the cellar, get three or four apples, eat these before 

 school time, then with a good generous supply of dinner, fill every pocket full 

 of apples, take one in each hand, and start for school with a reluctant look at 

 the fruit dish as though sorry they could carry no more. Better furnish them 

 fruit than pay doctor's bills; better give them the fruit than have them steal it, 

 for have it they will if it grows. 



I wish there were more blackberries raised. You hear much in regard to 

 strawberries, raspberries, and grapes, but so little said in regard to blackber- 

 ries. You may ride for miles through this country and you will not find one 

 farmer in twenty that raises enough for his own use. The beech and maple 

 lands, the home of the blackberry, are getting every year farther and farther 

 in the rear. To be sure along our highways you will find a few brambles, but 

 not enough for a taste. I think them one of our best berries, and 1 am sure 

 in some cases of sickness they are a good medicine, and I have hardly known 

 a well person to refuse them. When the country was much newer than it is 

 now, when Battle Creek contained only as many houses as you could easily 

 count upon your fingers, when malaria, fever and ague, diarrhoea, and such 

 diseases ran riot, the ripened blackberry was hailed a,s a panacea for all such 

 ills. I have heard my dear grandmother say that during what she termed the 

 "sickly year," when the squaws would bring the ripe blackberries, she always 

 felt that they brought healing in their luscious sweetness. Raise blackberries, 

 raise all kinds of berries. There is no excuse for any person who owns or 

 rents enough ground for what can be called a yard, in not having fruit enough 

 for his family. 



Fill your cans, do it well, exercise the greatest care in preparing your fruit, 

 have plenty of it; let it not trouble you that the fire is hot and the day still 

 hotter. This is what brings the fruit to perfection. None of these luxuries 

 come to us without work, and hard work, too. If not your labor, it represents 

 some one's. Take care of the fruit that He who showers the rich blessings of 

 His love upon us has given. With a variety of all kinds of fruit in our cel- 

 lars, we may set a royal table all through the winter season. 



Jellies! Does not the very name carry one back to childhood's days? To 

 the glorious summer days when the very skies seemed golden? When our feet 

 were bare and our cheeks were brown, and our hearts as light as the eider's 

 down? Jellies! Who cannot taste the scrapings of the preserving kettle, 

 smell the aromatic breath of fruits and spices that came from mother's kitchen? 



