STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 65 



as acescent or acid bearing fruits and vegetables. Fortunately, we 

 are not obliged to bear this in mind, and continually think of its 

 necessity when we eat our green vegetables in the summer, our apple 

 pies, our Shaker apple sauce, our baked apples, our orange or our 

 bunch of grapes. Nature has ordained that the body shall speak 

 for itself, and so we spice our meats and fish with an abundance of 

 wholesome vegetables and fruits, and the blood and other tissues 

 are all the time extracting from them what they need to keep them 

 in repair and runnmg order; another illustration that "we- eat to 

 live," and our free agency in the selection of our food is perhaps 

 not so great as we fondly imagine. 



I fear unless we begin to specif}', our paper will be in danger of 

 ending without an}' reason for its adoption of its somewhat preten- 

 tious heading. The pear of European and Asiatic origin is a strik- 

 ing example of what painstaking cultivation can accomplish with a. 

 fruit originally utterly useless for food ; for now it affords, in its; 

 different varieties, a fruit so rich and delicious that it would seem 

 the limit had been reached. The pear carries a large proportion- 

 ate amount of sugar, and to this it owes its great attractiveness.. 

 This large amount of sugar enables its expressed juice to aft'ord a, 

 greater measure of alcohol than can be derived from the juice of 

 the apple, and this, when fermented, is called "Perry," capable of 

 being turned into better vinegar even than cider. This perry is 

 used as a beverage in large pear-growing districts, and a curious 

 fact is mentioned in this connection, that in some countries, when 

 the fruit is so sour that hungry pigs will not smell of it, and the 

 juice from the bitten portion is so acrid and harsh as to cause long 

 continued heat and irritation in the mouth, after being expressed it 

 becomes rich and sweet, with no more roughness in taste than some 

 wines. A tree in Herefordshire, England, is said to have produced 

 fifteen hogsheads of perry in one year ; the branches bent down 

 until they rooted, covering half an acre of ground. Pears help out 

 the monotony of our various apple dishes, and may be made a val- 

 uable addition to the dietary in the form of preserves, marmalades,, 

 sauces, jellies, or boiled, baked or stewed. "Well spiced, they may 

 be preserved in vinegar as excellent pickles. The pear was, by old 

 writers, supposed to afford an antidote against certain poisonous 

 fungi. 



The quince is a fruit which has long since yielded precedence to 

 more esteemed and aristocratic cousins. The Greeks honored it by 



