STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 35 



tread. We place the luscious ripened fruits upon our tables, and 

 partake of them with deep sensual gratification, but we do not often 

 consider the origin and nature of the complex agents which render 

 them so acceptable. 



The sense of taste is in some respects the most mysterious and 

 wonderful of all senses. If the sense of touch is, as seems 

 probable, the parent sense, or the primal avenue through which 

 mind was able to assert itself, it must be that taste was the next 

 most necessary sense for man's elevation and protection. All we 

 know about it chemically or physiologically, is that a delicate net- 

 work of nerves ramifies through the tissues of the tongue, and in 

 surrounding or adjacent parts, and that they have the functional 

 duty to perform of conveying to the "central office," — the brain, — 

 sensations as regards the nature of what is brought in contact. If 

 we examine into the chemical or physical character of these nerves, 

 we do not find that thej' are in the slightest respect different from 

 the optic or auditory nerves which transmit sensations so absolutely 

 unlike. They are the same in color, structure, and chemical con- 

 stitution ; but how different their office ! Nature has fixed limits 

 to our fields of investigation, and however anxioush* we may 

 inquire, we cannot take a single step over the boundar}' line which 

 divides the known from the unknowable. We must content our- 

 selves, therefore, with the act of bringing substances in contact 

 with the little telephonic nerve conductors of the mouth, and per- 

 mit them to inform the interior man whether they are noxious or 

 innoxious, agreeable or disagreeable, and not ask hoio the messages 

 are conveyed. 



Substances characterized by sweetness, are assumed to contain an 

 organic product called sugar, and, as a class, vegetable structures 

 do contain it in some one of its forms. There are, however, a few 

 substances which have a sweet taste not due to sugar. Acetate of 

 lead is an example afforded in the mineral world, and glycerine is a 

 sweet liquid, the base of fatty acid compounds having no sugar. 

 There is a form called hepatic sugar, which is a product of the liver, 

 and some of the secretions of the body contain it. It is, however, 

 in the organic world that we find sugar in the vast quantities needed 

 by man, and in the juices of fruits and plants we find its hiding 

 place. 



Before vegetable physiology and chemistry were understood, the 

 belief prevailed that all the characteristic constituents of fruits and 



