as the grape cure has been productive of much good.  Lemons and oranges have also been of great benefit.  Strawberries have been craved for and have proved of the greatest advantage in some extreme cases of illness when more concentrated food could not be endured.  Fruit is coming into greater use, especially owing to its better distribution and lessened cost.  Fruit is not as cheap as it should be, as it can be produced in great abundance at little cost, and with comparatively little labour.  The price paid by the public greatly exceeds the real cost of production.  A very large proportion, often the greater part of the cost to the consumer, goes in railway and other rates and in middle-men’s profits.  It is commonly cheaper to bring fruit from over the sea, including land carriage on either side, than it is to transport English produce from one part of our country to another.  English homegrown fruit would be cheaper were it not for the difficulty of buying suitable land at a reasonable price, and the cost of transit.  For the production of prime fruit there is a lack of sufficient intelligence, of scientific culture and co-operation.

Vegetables—­using the name in its popular sense—­contain valuable saline constituents or salts.  By the usual method of cooking a large proportion of the salts is lost.  It is better to steam than to boil them.  The fibrous portion of vegetables is not all digested, but it is useful in stimulating the peristaltic action of the bowels and lessening any tendency to constipation.  Vegetables are more especially useful to non-vegetarians to correct the defects of their other food.

The potato belongs to a poisonous order—­the Solanacae.  There is a little alkaloid in the skin, but this is lost in the cooking.  The eyes and sprouting portions contain the most and should be cut out.

Fungi.—­There are about a hundred edible species in this country, but many of the fungi are poisonous, some intensely so.  It can scarcely be expected that these lowly organised plants, differing so much in their manner of growth from the green or chlorophyll bearing plants, can be particularly nourishing.  It is only the fructifying part, which appears above the ground, that is generally eaten.  It is of very rapid growth.  Of 9 edible fungi of 4 species, obtained in the Belgrade market, the average amount of water was 89.3 per cent., leaving only 10.7 per cent. of solid matter; the average of fat was 0.55 per cent.  The food value of fungi has been greatly over-rated.  In most of the analyses given in text-books and elsewhere, the total nitrogen has been multiplied by 6.25 and the result expressed as proteid.  The amount of nitrogen in a form useless for the purpose of nutrition is about a third of the whole.  Of the remainder or proteid nitrogen, it is said much is not assimilated, sometimes quite half, owing to the somewhat indigestible character of the fungi.  An analysis of the common mushroom gave proteids 2.2 per cent., amides (useless nitrogenous compounds) 1.3 per cent., and water 93.7 per cent.  The fungi are of inferior nutritive value to many fresh vegetables and are much more expensive.  Their chief value is as a flavouring.