TWENTY-THIRD ANNUAL MEETING. 103 



I never take it myself. Instances of harm by inflammation in appendix 

 vermiformis, from swallowing grape or other seeds, are very rare. Often 

 those presumed to have had this trouble really died of other cause. I 

 always tell my children not to swallow them, but always do it myself. Of 

 all the millions of people who daily swallow some such seeds the number 

 harmed is almost infinitesimal." 



PROF. J. B. STEERE ON "WILD AND CULTIVATED FRUITS OF THE 



AMAZON." 



The study of foreign fruits and foreign fruit sujjply is of twofold inter- 

 est to us. It interests us as fruit-raisers, in an economic way. If the 

 foreign fruits can be furnished good enough in quality and cheap enough, 

 they may to some extent take the place of our own fruits and thus injure the 

 home producer, as cheap foreign wools injure the sheep-raiser. This will 

 be much more the case if the fruits are of the same kind as our own. If they 

 are entirely distinct, the chief result will probably be to increase the amount 

 of fruit used. The introduction of foreign fruits, then, interests all of us, 

 as it increases the variety of pleasurable and healthful things to be enjoyed. 



The use of foreign fruits depends not only upon the actual quality, 

 which makes the demand for them, but upon the absolute possible 8upj)ly, 

 upon the keeping quality of the fruit, and upon the distance and cost of 

 transportation. If any one of these requisities is wanting in a fruit, it will be 

 of little value to us. The so-called grape-fruit, the shaddock of the east, 

 can probably be produced as cheaply as the orange, but its quality forbids 

 its general us. Many of the finest tropical fruits in the world never 

 appear in our markets because they are either too delicate for transporta- 

 tion or are produced at such a distance from us as to make their transporta- 

 tion unprofitable. 



When a foreign fruit of good quality can be furnished us in good con- 

 dition and cheaply, it is sure of recognition. Before the year 1865, bananas 

 were a rare sight in our markets. There are more carloads of bananas sold 

 in Ann Arbor now in a year then there were bunches then. This great 

 growth in consumption depends upon the good quality of the fruit ( not at 

 all the best in this case), upon its keeping qualities, and upon the fact 

 that an abundance of territory for its successful cultivation has been found 

 near enough our ports to make transportation cheap. 



The puzzle of botanists is in the fact that fruits and other plants grow- 

 in zones of climate. No one can well say why an orange should not be as 

 hardy as an apple, and fruit as well in Michigan as Florida, but it does 

 not. Neither do we, as we approach the equator, find a climate, as we 

 might be led to expect, in which all the plants of the world shall find sea- 

 sons and conditions for fruiting; but the hardier fruits and plants of the 

 north, like its animals and men, have been left behind, and it is as diffi- 

 cult to raise roses and potatoes, and even grapes, in equatorial Brazil as it 

 would be to raise pineapples and bananas here. I found an old Portu- 

 gese steamboat captain at Para on the Amazon, putting ice about his roses 

 that he might be able to get a few flowers; and the poor Spanish priests 

 of the Philippines are always experimenting with grapes, and think it 

 noteworthy if they can get a few poor bunches. 



Every plant, at least every plant which is highly organized enough to be 



