BRITISH FRUIT GROWING FROM A FOOD POINT OF VIEW. 171 



wide a range as this would indicate, for I take it that the word 

 " fruit," as generally understood by the popular mind, restricts 

 us to pomes, drupes, berries, and nuts. 



Now, in dealing with the food question, one has to consider 

 it from various points of view. There is the range over which it 

 extends, briefly indicated by the divisions into which we classify 

 members of the animal kingdom as carnivorous, herbivorous, 

 omnivorous. We know quite well that man is to be found, 

 practically, in all these divisions ; that is to say, there are races 

 of men who are nearly allied to the carnivora ; others, as I have 

 pointed out to you, are eaters of herbs ; whilst the great bulk of 

 people over the civilised globe, if not omnivorous, are, at any 

 rate, advocates of a mixed diet, selected from the animal and 

 the vegetable kingdoms in varying proportions. But we must 

 not lose sight of the fact that, as a broad principle, the savage 

 nations are more closely addicted to carnivorous habits, and 

 there are students — biblical and otherwise — who have held that 

 the nearer a man approaches to a state of primitive innocence, 

 or, indeed, innocence of any kind, the more likely is he to select 

 his diet entirely from the vegetable kingdom. Whilst, then, it is 

 an admitted fact — and this is important to our argument— that it 

 is quite possible to sustain healthy, vigorous, and active life, 

 physical and mental, upon a diet of herbs and fruits, and whilst 

 there are thousands of people who adopt this diet as a matter of 

 principle, there are also millions of people who are in reality, if not 

 in name, vegetarians simply on account of the economic character 

 which this system of diet favours. Until recent years almost the 

 entire labouring population of Ireland and the greater part of 

 Scotland were largely vegetarians in practice, whilst whole 

 nations in different parts of the habitable world maintain life 

 without having recourse to flesh diet at all. I am simply now 

 speaking of what — I take it — is a neceseary item to prove, 

 namely, that fruit has a food value that has never been over- 

 rated, but in the majority of instances is sadly under -mtsdi, and 

 in the actual practice of daily life is, broadly speaking, in this 

 country hardly realised at all. Now, it would be quite within 

 my province here to produce statistics to uphold the view I have 

 just submitted; but anyone interested in this particular aspect of 

 the question can obtain information from the Vegetarian Society 

 or from a little pamphlet by Mr. A. W. Duncan, F.C.S., called 



