234 GARDENING WITH BRAINS 



cherries, apples, and grapes," says a noted 

 French physician in a treatise on longevity. 



Children do not need to be urged to eat fruit 

 freely; they prefer it to everything except 

 candy, and it is much better for them than 

 candy. Adults too often get out of the habit of 

 eating fruit freely; the consumption of it ought 

 to be twenty times what it is now, and it would 

 be that if lie best varieties only were brought 

 to market and the prices kept low. 



Of course, eating too much fruit is bad as 

 bad as eating too much of anything. Fruit 

 should be avoided in some diseases, and it does 

 not agree with some healthy persons. Yet there 

 is good reason for believing that even these 

 persons would find it beneficial if they exercised 

 care in avoiding the inferior and unripe. 



ANOTHER BURBANK TRIUMPH 



Pectic acid abounds in unripe fruit, and pectic 

 acid, while necessary for jellying, is not desirable 

 in fresh fruit. Some years ago a chemist wrote 

 to Luther Burbank: 



I have finished making an analysis of a number of 

 your fruits and I find that pectic acid, which is apt to 

 play havoc with the human digestive tract, and which 

 accounts for the inability of many people to enjoy raw 

 fruit, is almost entirely absent. 



It would be difficult to overestimate the im- 

 portance of this discovery. 



