76 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



thing, and gets off without anything more serious than a spanking, a hot 

 water l^ottle and a stomachache. Suppose that boy had swallowed an over 

 dose of roast turkey: He would not get off so easy; he would have a bilious 

 attack and vomiting spell, and next day a bilious attack, and would not 

 want any more roasted turkey for a week. The fruit may produce a little 

 gas in the stomach, a little inconvenience, a little colic; but it can not produce 

 poisoning; cannot produce autointoxication; cannot make the boy so sick 

 he will not have an appetite for some more next day, and it seems just as 

 good. The natural love of children for fruit is an indication of the intrinsic 

 value of this food substance; and the instinctive leading towards it — you 

 never found a child that did not like fruit. The sweetness of the fruit is 

 a recommendation to the sweet tooth which every normal human being 

 has. 



Cane sugar is quite another thing. It is a substance which is likely to 

 produce more or less mischief when taken too freel3^ But the sugar found 

 in fruits is absolutely harmless; can be taken in any quantity you can get 

 it in, in the shape of fruits and juices. But cane sugar, in the form of candy, 

 is another thing. It is a coarse sugar, is intended for cows, is good food 

 for cows. The cow has a special stomach which enables it to digest sugar, 

 especially cane sugar. The sugar of fruits requires no digestion, while cane 

 sugar requires digestion in the intestines, and must be digested before it 

 can be utilized. The sugar of fruit can be injected straight into the blood 

 and assimilated without digestion at all; whereas cane sugar taken into the 

 blood is cast out through the kidneys and cannot be utilized at all. That 

 is the difference between these two sugars. 



I assure you I am heartily with you in this business. I am helping to 

 produce a market for fruit. If you will supply the market with good fruit, 

 I am sure the market will grow. I believe it is so important to increase the 

 use of fruit and persuade the people of the importance of using it, that I 

 look upon every one of you fruit growers as a self-supporting missionary 

 working for me. So we are very glad to have you here in this town, and to 

 have the people waked up to the importance of this thing. 



Now about the chewing of fruits. Fruits are more or less firm in their 

 structures — most fruits — and if they are swallowed in chunks they cannot 

 be utilized; but these chunks of fruit will pass right along through the alimen- 

 tary canal like so much sawdust or other indigestible material, because of 

 the woody framework which gives to the fruit its form; it is saturated with 

 the juices like a sponge, and when it is taken into the stomach and alimentary 

 canal, unless that woody framework is crushed and broken down, the woody 

 part of the fruit cannot be utilized, and mischief is likely to be done, and for 

 two reasons: Not only because it acts like a foreign body irritating the 

 intestines and alimentary canal, but because the sugar of the fruit, not 

 undergoing prompt absorption, undergoes fermentation instead, and this 

 fermentation produces acids, and the acids are irritating, and the intestines 

 may be distended with gas, and much mischief may result from it. 



Improper chewing of fruit has led to the supposition that it is hard to 

 digest; that the people with weak stomachs must beware of it; that it must 

 especially be kept away from children; and this great error has led to very 

 great mischief. • 



I had a good illustration of it some years ago during the Spanish-American 

 war. Just at the close of the war a great number of soldiers were being 

 brought back, who were suffering, not from the wounds of their enemies, 

 but from the wounds they had received in germs from unsanitary conditions 



