177 



look back to a childhood of half a century or so ago, wher 

 of our staple fruits were absolutely unknown in the marke 

 when the varieties of those then staple were few and so po 

 the best of them would now scarcely find a sale. Thei 



were absolutely unobtainable. The banana came occasi 

 bunches, and might be had at the 



r fiftee 



>nly through the 



tropic; 



often marketed, yet as < 

 we find it like trying t 



Many 

 ither known only in the wild 

 lerely for a domestic supply. There 

 :m, though the accidental surplus was 

 n allowed to go to waste. When we 

 r pampered children, 



: hunger 



ind thin 



It is almost equally difficult for us to realize the rel; 

 worse conditions which faced our early settlers and cons 

 the status naturae of the aborigines. They knew practically noth- 

 ing of improvements under cultivation, and but little of pi 

 ing methods, yet they depended upon the fruit supply, not foi 

 their luxuries merely, but to eke out the quantity of food n< 

 sary for actual existence. We can, however, readily unders 

 that it would be necessary for a people so circumstanced t< 

 many things which we would, at first thought, regard as unfit for 

 human food. It is of this class of fruits, particularly, that I wish to 

 speak to-day. The subject is perhaps of more than mere histor- 

 ical interest. Some of these fruits have been pronounced by ex- 

 pert and learned judges to be worthy of a place among our 

 modern supplies, and amenable to great improvement by modern 

 methods of treatment. 



We shall first consider a group of fruits of a peculiarly acid 



or correctives in addition to that of ordinary fruits. The type of 

 this class is the cranberry, the cultivation of which, scarcely 

 known in my boyhood, is now one of our important agricultural 

 industries. The small cranberry {Oxycoccus Oxycoccus) is but 



