66 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



carving it among the decorative sculptures of their temples, and 

 looked upon it as an emblem of happiness and love, certainly a 

 more aesthetic position than was ascribed to it by the boy whose 

 idea of its usefulness had been tinctured by his mother's cookery ; 

 for when asked by his teacher in botany some of the uses of the 

 quince, replied, ''To spoil apple pies." The dried fruit is now used 

 by the house-keepers of southern Europe to perfume their stores of 

 linen, much as our New England housewives use orange peel, laven- 

 der, rose leaves and clover ; possibly the quince may be one of 

 their agents for similar use ; of that I cannot affirm. It is a most 

 excellent fruit for preserves, jellies and sauces, either alone or with 

 other fruits, to many of which a little of the quince flavor imparts 

 an additional zest. From the liquid with sugar is made a good 

 wine. Medicinally, the quince has certain virtues ; a decoction of 

 the fruit has been said to cure asthma. Its juice is thought to be. a 

 corrective of nausea ; the ripe fruit eaten raw is said to be good for 

 spitting of blood, swollen spleen, dropsy and difficulty of breathing, 

 and such a claim for general therapeutic excellence impels me to 

 say, that, as a rule, articles which are heralded as sovereign cures 

 for many diseases in general, are usually not cures for anything in 

 particular. Actual experience has, however, accorded to the quince 

 certain well defined properties of therapeutic value. Its astrin- 

 gency renders a syrup prepared from the ripe fruit a serviceable 

 remedy in certain diarrhoeal affections. The seeds contain what 

 medicinal virtue the fruit possesses. Their hard envelope abounds 

 in a mucilage which may be extracted by boiling water, and may be 

 used like other mucilaginous substances in catarrhal conditions of 

 the mucus lining of the bronchial tubes, probably acting reflexly as 

 a soothing application to the throat, thus allaying dryness and cough. 

 For the same reasons this mucilage of quince seeds may be used as 

 an application for sore lips or inflamed eyelids. 



Most of us have become more or less familiar with the agreeable 

 properties of the plum, through the medium of the various domestic 

 processes by which this fruit is preserved and stewed. The general 

 properties of the plum render it of considerable value when it is 

 desirable to correct deranged intestinal functions by a regulated diet, 

 rather than by a resort to drugs. AYhen eaten cooked or raw, half 

 ripe or green, the effect is astringent, but when fully ripe, rather 

 laxative. The sloe-plum, which is cultivated to some extent in 

 England, furnishes a juice which when fermented makes a wine not 



