1876.] REPORT ON APPLES. 33 



to grow, at last, in alternate years, provided neither frost, nor drouth, nor 

 insects, nor other cause patent or latent, interferes to prevent a good 

 yield, fills his cellar and storehouses to overflowing with fruit for which 

 there is but little market ; what wonder that the patient waiter should 

 seriously ask himself, cui bono ? 



In the flush times of money and business, five to fifteen years ago, 

 there was not a single abundant crop of apples in the 'New England 

 States. In any one of the ten years referred to, without doubt, almost 

 any quantity of apples might have been marketed at good prices. The 

 crops of 1872, 1874 and 1876 have all been extraordinary large and good. 

 That of 1872, being one year before the beginning of the general com- 

 mercial depression that still prevails in the country, was sold at a fair 

 profit to the grower. The crops of 1874 and 1876 have been a drug in 

 the market. Great quantities of excellent apples, that in the fall of 1874 

 were offered in vain for SI per barrel, were in the spring following fed to 

 cattle or made into cider. Commonly regarded as a luxury, rather than 

 a necessity of life, apples are not, from motives of economy, purchased 

 or used by many families, who would not think of retrenching at all in 

 laying in a winter's supply of such an article as potatoes. 



Your Committee challenge the economy as false and unsound that 

 treats or views apples as a mere luxury. One dollar per barrel for ajjples 

 is forty cents a bushel, and ten cents a peck. What equivalent of food 

 to a peck of apples can be bought for ten cents ? They are nutritious 

 and wholesome for the young and the old, the sick an : the well. They 

 furnish a fresh vegetable acid much needed in the economy of the human 

 system, at a season of the year when it is obtainable Irom no other 

 source. It is not necessary to make them into pies, sauces or dumplings, 

 nor even that thev be baked, roasted, boiled or fried. The art of cooking, 

 as applied to the best apples, that is, such as are large, fair, fully ripe, 

 and neither too sour nor too sweet, is time, labor and fuel wasted. 



There is an old saw about apples being gold in the morning, silver at 

 noon and lead at night, intended, doubtless, to convey the notion that it 

 is better to eat apples a good while before going to bed. And a most 

 false and groundless notion it is. There is no better time to eat apples, 

 or any thing else that is fit to eat, than just before retiring to rest — pro- 

 vided you are hungry and need to eat. It is Nature's way, and therefore 

 the best way. All animals — and all men, too, not corrupted with the 

 usages, traditions and crotchets of civilization — lie down and go to sleep 

 upon a full stomach. And, unless you have so abused your digestive or- 

 gan with artificial and unnatural cooking that its operation, even upon 

 simple, natural and healthful food has become a painful process, and will 



