Most of the fruit, as well as other vegetables, brought to our city markets in this country, is utterly unfit to be eaten.  Sometimes it is immature; sometimes it has a hot house maturity; sometimes it has been picked so long that it has begun to decay.  Many fruits—­berries especially—­are in perfection for a very short period only.  Mulberries, for example—­one kind especially—­are not in perfection long enough to carry to the market house, even though the distance were very small.  Luckily, however, very few mulberries are eaten.  But the raspberry and strawberry, if perfect when gathered, have usually begun to decay, before they are purchased.  That this appears to be rather unfrequent, is because they are gathered before they are ripe.

Dr. Dewees regards most fruits as difficult of digestion.  I do not think they are so, if perfect and ripe.  The experiments of Dr. Beaumont, so far as they prove any general principle, show conclusively that mellow sweet apples are more quickly digested than any kind of vegetable food whatever, except rice and sago.  But even admitting they were slow of digestion, I do not think—­as I have already shown in another place—­that they ought on that account to be excluded.  Besides, my opinion differs from that of Dr. D. in regard to the strength of the digestive powers of children.  After teething, they seem to me to be able to digest any substances which adults can; and with as little difficulty.

But to return:—­No fruit is in perfection longer than the apple.  Besides, no fruit appears to be less injured in its nature and properties by picking it a little before it is ripe, and preserving it during the winter.  It is on this account, more perhaps than any other, that I value it more highly than all other fruits united.

Apples may be used either raw or cooked.  In either case, the skins and seeds should be avoided, as has been before suggested.  I am not ignorant that WILLICH, in his “Lectures on Diet and Regimen”—­an excellent work, in the main—­says that the seeds ought to be eaten; but I believe few physiologists would comply with his injunction, especially when it is considered that he recommends, in the same connection, that we swallow the stones of cherries and plums.  Strange how far our theories will sometimes carry us!

The apple is excellent when roasted or baked, especially the sweet apple.  It is very common, in some places, to eat baked sweet apples with milk; and the practice is by no means a bad one.  Indeed, baked or raw apples might be advantageously made a part of at least one of our meals every day.  There is said to be a miserly farmer—­a single gentleman—­in the western part of the state of Massachusetts, who has lived on nothing but apples for his food, and water for his drink, about forty years.  And yet he is said to enjoy the most perfect health.  I do not propose this as an example worthy of imitation; but it shows that apples maybe made to subserve an