ELEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT. 17 
1. A large proportion of water: the usual amount ranging 
from 85 to go per cent of the total weight of fresh, well-matured 
fruit. 
2. Sugar in the form of grape and fruit sugar. The per- 
centage is quite variable ranging from about 1.5 per cent in 
apricots and peaches, to about 12 per cent in some varieties of 
grapes and cherries. An average well-grown, fully matured 
apple contains about 8 per cent of sugar. 
3. Free organic acids; varying somewhat according to the 
class of fruit, and usually of several kinds in each class, but 
altogether forming usually something less than one per cent. 
The predominating acid in the apple and pear is malic; in 
the grape tartaric; and in the orange and lemon citric. 
4. Fats, oils and ethers, abundant in some mature fruits, 
like the olive, occurring in small quantities in others, and in some 
almost wholly wanting. 
5. Protein or nitrogenous compounds, forming a very small 
proportion of most fruits, often not more than .2 of one per cent. 
6. Pectose—a substance which gives firmness to fruit, 
and which upon boiling yields various fruit jellies.. It often forms 
from three to five or more per cent of the weight. 
7: ‘Cellulose and starch, the former often called vegetable 
fiber is the material that forms the cell walls, and is found in all 
parts of all plants. It is less abundant in fine fruits than in any 
other part. of plants. 
Starch which is found so largely in the cereals, and in certain 
garden vegetables is almost wholly absent in ripe fruit, being 
converted into sugar during the process of ripening. 
8. A very small percentage of ash or mineral salts. 
The substances named above with the possible exception of 
cellulose are all essential constituents of a perfect or well rounded 
diet. 
The proportion of the more important nutrients, however, are 
so small that much of our fruit has little direct nutritive value. 
Suppose we take the three principal groups, viz: carbohydrates, 
proteids, and fats, which together may justly be called the grand 
tripod of nutritive substances, and see what some of our repre- 
sentative fruits will furnish. The Horticultural Department of 
the State University has made quite a number of analyses of the 
strawberry, and of the substances just named the average results 
are as follows: 
GANT AGING (8 VE a Ae ee 8.0 per. cent. 
ERE ELS ei HE lo hee Aan en ee i a 0.3 per cent. 
Fats a mere trace, practically nothing. 
