124 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



greatly to its value. There is far too little of this used in our 

 families. The old-fashioned dish of corn " pudding and milk " 

 is now nearly as obselete as that of " bean porridge ; " and may 

 we not, with much reason, attribute the physical degeneracy of 

 the present race to the radical changes in the forms of food ? 

 Regarding the matter from a chemical and medical point of 

 view, it certainly would be difficult to select better or more 

 healthful forms of human nutriment — forms so well calculated 

 to build up and sustain a " sound mind in a sound body," as 

 the two named above, once so popular, but now banished from 

 our tables. They were easy of digestion and assimilation and 

 contained all the chemical substances, or organic and inorganic 

 constituents needed to nourish the body and mind. Certainly, 

 white flour bread, cake and condiments, are poor substitutes for 

 the sensible, but plain dishes, of our fathers and mothers a half 

 century ago. 



FKUIT AISTD FEUIT HOUSES. 



ESSEX. 



ESSAY ON THE PRESERVATION OF FRUIT AND THE CON- 

 STRUCTION OF FRUIT HOUSES. 



BY ROBERT MANNING, OF SALEM. 



Twenty or thirty years ago, when winter pears began to be 

 generally cultivated, much disappointment was experienced by 

 cultivators, who found them hard, green and tasteless, instead 

 of juicy and delicious, as they had been described. But with 

 the introduction of better varieties, improved cultivation and 

 the maturity of the trees, under our hot suns their ripening 

 became so accelerated, that pears, which should have kept until 

 midwinter or later, could not be preserved to the end of Decem- 

 ber, and the inquiry was for means to retard rather than promote 

 their maturity. I need not spend time in arguing the necessity 

 of such means of preservation, especially to those who have 

 found their late pears ripe and gone from one to two months 

 earlier than they had anticipated. 



