Brinaing 3fortb 3fcult 171 



The machines are busy threshing out wheat, oats, 

 rye, barley, clover, and buckwheat. Every weed and 

 wayside bush is covered with ripe seed. Truly the 

 earth has brought forth her fruits. 



What is fruit"? Ask the dictionary, and the reply 

 is, ^' The matured seed vessel, its contents, and such 

 parts as are incorporated with them." Ask the child ; 

 he answers, " Something good to eat uncooked." 



Fruit is the matured seed ; all nuts, grains, peas, 

 beans, the winged seeds of maple, ash, thistle, dan- 

 delion, are fruit. Fruit-bearing is the life-object of 

 the plant; the fruit contains the embryo of the plant 

 to come, and assures the continuance of vegetation 

 and of animal life. 



More narrowly, fruit is defined, as we generally un- 

 derstand it, as " tlie pulpy mass connected with seeds 

 of various plants and trees, especiall}^ such products 

 as are pleasant to the taste and are eaten by men and 

 animals." This is the popular idea of fruit, and we 

 recognize oranges, lemons, pine-apples, peaches, 

 cherries, and their kind as undoubted fruits. It re- 

 quires some consideration to enable us to accept as 

 fruit the slowly-floating dandelion seed with its little 

 silken sail, or the sharp-hooked burrs of the stick- 

 tight, or burdock, or stramonium. 



The word fruit is from the Latin fruor, " I enjoy." 

 We cheerfully accord it to the beautiful and luscious, 



