POISONS OF THE FARMER'S LIFE. 17 



poisons. "But what shall be clone with the pig"? Why, at 

 any time you please, kill him. "And what then"? Don't 

 carefully scrape, scald, clean, and put inside of salt in barrels, 

 down in your cellar, his worthless carcass, but cut him into 

 inch pieces, bones and all, and put a large bucketful of them 

 down deep among the roots of your grape-vines. Give every 

 pear and apple tree a good dinner of the same. Feed cur- 

 rants and gooseberries also, and if you get more than you can 

 use in this way, prepare holes in your ground with this 

 fertilizer, where you can plant next year some more fruit- 

 trees. 



Oh, if we only would increase the use of home-raised fruit 

 in our food ! Use it ripe, cooked and uncooked, a great deal 

 more than we now do ! If we only Avould substitute for fried 

 salt pork, sopped bread, boiled pork, doughnuts, and the 

 everlasting piecrust of lard ! If we only would take in their 

 place potatoes, with milk, cream or butter, cooked apples, 

 stewed, dried and fresh fruits ! If we only would begin the 

 season with, and use much more largely, fresh and uncooked 

 fruits at every meal, beginning ill June with strawberries, and 

 ending in November with grapes ! Could not all this be 

 done with precious little outlay to you, gentlemen and ladies? 

 If it were very generally done, then we could predict the 

 farmer's millenium as not far distant. 



And how would the mothers and sisters meet the change in 

 their daily work ? Would they not prefer to go into the gar- 

 den and pick, and even on some farms help to cultivate many 

 of the fruits, rather than roast themselves over a kitchen stove 

 in the stench of the frying-pan ? And the raising of more 

 fruit of all kinds, which I am sure almost every farmer can 

 double in quantity, is not of interest simply for your own 

 food. Our mechanics, trades-people, school-teachers, and 

 other professional folk, will most happily exchange much of 

 the pork and salt meat for fruit, when you can atFord it to 

 them at reasonable rates. 



Ladies and gentlemen of this time-honored society, I be- 

 seech of you to turn your attention to raising more fruit, not 

 only that which must be cooked, but the delicious fruit which 

 only needs to be picked and eaten. Then our physiologists 



3* 



