Watermelons

The delight of our fellow-citizens of African descent and the pride of the small boy. Botanically, the Citrullus Vulgaris. These melons contain much sugar, and have diuretic qualities, especially the seeds.

The chemical composition of the cantaloupe is : Water, 89.5; proteids, .6; carbohydrates, 9.3; ash, .6. Fuel value per pound, 185. The watermelon is not quite so strong. The citron melon for preserving is a true watermelon.

Partridge Berry

This is often called the tea-berry, the partridge berry, etc., and the flavor is familiar to every child in its candy stick. Botanically, it is Gaultheria procumbens, and I believe is the same as the Mitchella repens of Gray, which is also called checkerberry, winter clover, and win-tergreen. The partridge berry is a beautiful little red berry of a sprightly pungent, aromatic taste, in market throughout the winter. The flowers are very fragrant. The fruit is grateful often to invalids, and is useful in lithaemic cases. The berry is the chief source of the oil of wintergreen, and from this we get true salicylic acid, which is probably much better in every way than the synthetic product so universally used, and which is made from carbolic acid, caustic soda, and carbonic acid.

Pigeonberry, Or Pokeberry

These are from the common poke, Phytolacca decandra. This poke is eaten and is mentioned here to warn persons to be careful and not use it when too old and hard. It is then emetic and unfit for food. The poke called American poke is the Indian poke, and from it we get the well-known medicine Ve-ratrutn Viride, a dangerous depressant. This is American hellebore. White hellebore is the European hellebore, Veratrum Album.

Haw

The hawberry is rather common and comes from the Viburnum Prunifolium.

Wineberry is a new berry somewhat on the order of the raspberry.

Loganberry

Its fruit is often over an inch long and dark red in color, with a flavor combining both the blackberry and raspberry.

Gooseberries (Ribes Grossularia)

They are toothsome to eat out of hand and make a delightful jam. The gooseberry comes to great perfection in England.

Currants

Three kinds, the red, the black, and the white, Ribes Rubrum, Ribes Nigrum, and Ribes Album. The red is generally used for jelly and the black to add astringency to medicines, etc.

Currant jelly is very useful when eaten with roast mutton, duck, etc. The fats of these are neutral and the acidity of the jelly causes them to better emulsify with the bile and pancreatic juice.

Cranberry

There are many varieties from the Vaccinium macrocarpon, and they grow in bogs. When shipped over the seas they must be packed in water. They have acid flavor and in digestion serve about the same uses as currants.

Cherry

This fruit especially delights the small boy, and gives him many a bad turn, not so much because the fruit is innately bad as that the small boy is innately reckless in his eating of it. The fuel value per pound is 265. The bad reputation of the cherry as an article of food is doubtless caused by the habit of eating it out of condition as to ripeness and as to its fermenting or rotting state, and because it is a most hospitable host to pathogenic and other germs. Before they are eaten they should be thoroughly washed and cleansed. Botanically the cherry is Prunus Cerasus, or Prunus Vulgaris, and is of Asiatic origin. The wild cherry is Prunus Virginiana, or Cerasus Virginiana. At the present time California sends us the best eating cherries.

For some reason, probably error in propagation, the trees of the best eating cherries do not thrive in the East. The sour cherries grow reasonably well.

Quince

Used only for preserves and jellies, and these are among the best. The seeds also make a fine mucilage. In preparing the quince always parboil it before adding the sugar. This sets the albumin, a matter of importance.

Blackberry

Wild blackberry, Rubus Villosus. Its type, but not its flavor, is improved by cultivation. It makes fine jams, wine, and preserves, and is very pleasant eaten raw, and has a slightly astringent effect on digestion.

Dewberry

About the same as the blackberry in eating, except probably sweeter and of better flavor. Botanically, Rubus trivialis or Rubus Canadensis.

Raspberry

This comes under the same genus, Rubus, and is Rubus Idoeus. There are the red and the black and the yellow. Their flavor is among the most delicate and delicious of all berries. The yellow berries are sports. The Golden Queen is a sport of the Cuthbert, a red berry. The products of the raspberry are jams, preserves, syrups, vinegar, and wine.

Lemons (The Fruit Of The Citrus Limonum)

Its juice, its rind, and its oil are all equally useful. It came originally from India with the orange. Lemon-juice contains 2 per cent. of citric acid, with mucilage and a bitter extractive. When you buy the oil, be sure it is fresh. It soon deteriorates, if pure. A certain percentage of alcohol best preserves it. If too old, it smells like turpentine, as do all of the essential oils. The use of the juice has been before spoken of.

Mulberry

There are the red, the white, and the black. The fruit is sweet and fairly palatable. The berry is elongated and granular. The white mulberry, the Morus Alba Multicaulis, is the favorite tree for the silk-worm to feed upon. Many of our grandfathers remember it to their sorrow, when the Morus Multicaulis craze raged years ago. Downings Ever-Bearing is the best mulberry to plant in the United States.

The Cantaloupe

The best and most delicate fruit of the melon tribe, and so named from the Villa Canteluppi, near Rome, where the fruit abounds. It comes from the Cucurbitacea, or gourd family, and is botanically the Cucumis Melo.

It grows almost anywhere in America. The skin is roughened with a cork-like net-work. The rougher the skin, as a rule, the better the melon. Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Colorado are noted for their fine cantaloupes. The Jenny Lind, a mean-looking, flattened, rough-rind, greenish little melon, with a snout, is undoubtedly the highest flavored of its class. Gloucester and Salem Counties, New Jersey, are noted for these melons. Rocky Fords from Colorado are very fine when genuine.