144 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



worthy of the pulpit, to put a stop to bringing this unwholesome 

 food into the city. 



Mr. Steele mentioned having brought in a basket of good ripe 

 tomatoes to a market woman, a little later than the usual season 

 of them, and she was so much pleased with them that she offered 

 to fill his basket in return with Vergalieu pears. So it is some- 

 times, at least, profitable to have your fruit ripe. 



Mr. Robinson mentioned another instance in which a market 

 gardener cleared $1,000 by sending his tomatoes to market a 

 week earlier, although they were green. The proper remedy is 

 to begin at this end, — to stop the buying and eating. 



Prof. Mapes said that tomatoes could be raised ten days earlier 

 by topping the vines. Ninety per cent of the fruit is within 

 eighteen inches of the ground, and ninety per cent, of the vine 

 is beyond that distance. The vine does not bleed, so that it may 

 be cut fearlessly, and the removed branches should be dug 

 beneath the surface. The proper time is when the first fruit is 

 of the size of an egg. The same principle applies to lima beans. 

 If allowed to grow at will, they will measure forty feet ; but the 

 first beans are formed on the lower part of the vine, and many 

 of those on the upper part of the vine never ripen. The terminal 

 bud should be pinched off at five and a half feet high, and they 

 will then throw out laterals and yield largely. They will yield at 

 least fifty per cent, more when so treated. There is another mat- 

 ter which farmers should take into consideration. The flavoring 

 matter of every fruit is a proximate principle known as fusel oil 

 combined with one of the acids. Fusel oil is one of the products in 

 the distillation of grain. He had instituted a series of experiments 

 to determine how to produce these flavors. Taking one hundred 

 watch glasses and placing a drop of fusil oil in each, he then 

 added to one a drop of nitric acid, producing a pine apple flavor; 

 to another a drop of hydrochloric acid, producing the flavor of 

 the cherry; to another a drop of tannic acid, producing the 

 strawberry flavor, etc. The flavor of strawberries may be 

 increased by watering them with a dilute solution of tannic acid. 

 But the mere fact that a certain flavor is produced in a watch- 

 glass does not prove that the same flavor will be produced in the 

 soil, for we do not know what chemical changes will there take 

 place. But chemistry having informed us how the flavors are 

 produced, we may then by experiment ascertain how to obtain in 

 the plant an increased flavor. 



