158 



The Canadian Horticulturist. 



THE USE OF MOi^E FRUIT IN OUR DIET.* 



HIS subject has pressed itself for some time upon my atten- 

 tion, from the fact that few realize from practical experi- 

 ence the benefits to be derived from eating less meat and 

 a larger use of fruit in our diet. Anyone who will make a 

 canvass through the country, will find that more than half 

 of our farmers raise no small fruit, and many who have 

 orchards sell their crop of apples and leave their families, 

 in too many instances, destitute of the very food conducive to their healthfulness. 

 Now in support of the attitude taken in the premises, it is important, you 

 will say, that the highest testimony should be adduced, and we will call in the 

 medical profession. 



At the convention of the " Australian Federated Fruit Growers' Associa- 

 tion," in April last, Dr. Benjafield delivered a lecture on " Fruit as a Food and 

 Medicine," which appeared in Appleton's Popular Science Monthly for Septem- 

 ber, and was reproduced in medical and other journals in the United States. 



The introductory remarks in this very able lecture would be of value for 

 us to consider here. The Doctor says: "From Solomon, all down through 

 the succeeding ages, poets have sung the praises of the luscious grape and 

 peach, and painters have sought to outvie each other in depicting the attractions 

 of the apple and plum ; and away deep down below all this, we see through the 

 whole animal creation a developed instinct which teaches all to long after these 

 beautiful fruits. Is this instinct wrong ? Is nature a fool thus to make her 

 creatures voice their needs ? When you see the whole insect family swarming 

 over and devouring our choicest fruits, shall we say that they do not know what 

 is good for them ? When we see pigs, horses, cows and sheep breaking down 

 our fences, need we ask how they learned to love fruit ? Aye, more, note the 

 baby in the arms who screams for the rosy apple, and bites away at it even with 

 toothless gums, and, as the baby grows into the boy, how he will defy caneS' 

 and even police, so that he can get what he loves and longs for. 



" The Creator is so anxious that this very necessary food shall be eaten by 

 His creatures, that He makes it beautiful to look upon, sweet and attractive in 

 smell, and gives to it such varieties of flavor, that the most fastidious can be 

 satisfied. And yet, in spite of all this, the great mass of the people look upon 

 fruit as a luxury upon which they can only spend odd pennies for the amuse- 

 ment of their children. Many parents will more readily spend money on inju- 

 rious or even poisoned sweets, than they will on good healthy fruit ; and fashion- 

 able society will spend pounds on cakes, wines and brandies, while they spend 

 as many shillings on the very thing they need to keep them healthy — fruit. 



* From a paper read before the Pomological and Fruit Growing Society of the Prov- 

 ince of Quebec, at their winter meeting in the Theatre Eoyal, St. Johns, Que. 



