10 DAVET'S PRIMER 



Hello ! look 'at little Ruth. See how she is de- 

 lighted with that pile of nice ripe apples! 



Well, well, what child is there that is not animated 

 by such a sight! Of course every boy and girl likes 

 the apple and almost every other kind of fruit. I knew 

 a family, a few years ago, who put forty-five bushels of 

 apples in the cellar in the fall of the year and, by March, 

 they had all " marched 7 ' somewhere (down "Red 

 Lane," I presume), and there was not the least sick- 

 ness in that family for those four months. If we ate 

 more fruit and vegetables there would not be half of the 

 doctor's bills ; and, with good health, how joyous life 

 would be ! It is our custom to eat the flesh of other 

 animals (I confess I do it myself), but I am fully 

 satisfied that the fruit and vegetable diet is more 

 productive of good health ; besides, it gives a better 

 disposition. The animals that feed on vegetation are 

 gentler than those that live on flesh. Think of the 

 difference between the sheep and the dog, the deer and 

 the panther, or the hawk and the dove! While I am 

 not suggesting that we should abstain entirely from 

 using the flesh of animals, yet I think that we all will 

 agree that we should use more fruit. Decaying fruits, 

 such as we so often see on the market, are not whole- 

 some, and it is one of the purposes of this book to help 

 our boys and girls to raise their own supply. Hundreds 

 of thousands of American children who now have to 

 use bad fruit, or, perhaps, go without will, in a few 

 years, have the unspeakable pleasure of seeing their 

 tables ladened with their own products. 



This book will tell you how to grow good, healthy 



