To serve its best purpose, raw fruit should be eaten without sugar or other condiments, or with the addition of as small a quantity as possible.

It is a disputed question whether fruits should begin or end the meal; but it is generally conceded by those who have given the matter attention, that fruit eaten at the beginning of a meal is itself the more readily digested, and aids in the digestion of other foods, since fruits, like soups, have the property of stimulating the flow of the digestive juices.  Something, however, must depend upon the character of the fruit; oranges, melons, and like juicy fruits, are especially useful as appetizers to begin the meal, while bananas and similar fruits agree better if taken with other food, so as to secure thorough mixture with saliva.  This is true of all fruits, except such pulpy fruits as strawberries, peaches, melons, grapes, and oranges.  It is often erroneously asserted that fruit as dessert is injurious to digestion.  For those people, however, who regulate their bill of fare in accordance with the principles of hygiene, a simple course of fruit is not only wholesome, but is all that is needed after a dinner; and much time, labor, and health will be saved when housekeepers are content to serve desserts which nature supplies all ready for use, instead of those harmful combinations in the preparing of which they spend hours of tiresome toil.

DESCRIPTION.—­For convenience, fruits may be grouped together; as, pomaceous fruits, including the apple, quince, pear, etc.; the drupaceous fruits, those provided with a hard stone surrounded by a fleshy pulp, as the peach, apricot, plum, cherry, olive, and date; the orange or citron group, including the orange, lemon, lime, citron, grape fruit, shaddock, and pomegranate; the baccate or berry kind, comprising the grape, gooseberry, currant, cranberry, whortleberry, blueberry, and others; the arterio group, to which belong raspberries, strawberries, dewberries, and blackberries; the fig group; the gourd group, including—­melons and cantaloupes; and foreign fruits.

It is impossible, in the brief scope of this work, to enumerate the infinite varieties of fruit; but we will briefly speak of some of the most common found in the gardens and markets of this latitude.

APPLES.—­The origin and first home of the apple, is unknown.  If tradition is to be believed, it was the inauspicious fruit to which may be traced all the miseries of mankind.  In pictures of the temptation in the garden of Eden, our mother Eve is generally represented as holding an apple in her hand.

We find the apple mentioned in the mythologies of the Greeks, Druids, and Scandinavians.  The Thebans offered apples instead of sheep as a sacrifice to Hercules, a custom derived from the following circumstance:—­

“At one time, when a sacrifice was necessary, the river Asopus had so inundated the country that it was impossible to take a sheep across it for the purpose, when some youths, recollecting that the Greek word melon signified both sheep and an apple, stuck wooden pegs into the fruit to represent legs, and brought this vegetable quadruped as a substitute for the usual offering.  After this date, the apple was considered as especially devoted to Hercules.”