The Benefits of Fruit Culture
By D. NETTLETON
THE advantages of a fruit diet are numerous. In the first place, fruit is a germ killer and disease destroyer—a medicinal food. It has been scientifically demonstrated that it is absolutely impossible for typhoid fever germs to live in lemon-juice. If people would only live on a liberal fruit diet, which would destroy fever and other disease germs, there would be far less sickness, and, consequently, less sorrow. Fruit culturists are great benefactors and physicians of the people. The substitution of the orchard for the slaughter-house and butcher’s shop would contribute much to the public health. And since health is happiness, a fruit diet would result in much greater happiness for those who adopted it. The moral influences of fruit culture are also obvious. Our environment has much to do with our character building, for by beholding we become changed. What a dreary world this would be without trees! How much happier and better men are by the contemplation of trees, vines and flowers. Man’s first employment in his sinless state was to cultivate the trees and flowers that God had planted. And after the fall, he was sent forth to till the ground, and earn his bread in the sweat of his brow. There is a refining and uplifting influence in the society of beautiful trees and plants, especially fruit-trees. Their beautiful blossoms, making the air fragrant with heavenly perfume, their rich, glowing fruits in bright clusters bending, tend to restrain in man that which is rough and cruel, and encourage him to cultivate kindness and gentleness. The cultivation of fruit-trees, vines, and flowers helps to make gentle men and lovely women. Children who receive their first and most lasting impressions surrounded by hen-coops, cattle-yards, and pig-pens; who have to listen constantly to the bellowing of cattle and the squealing of pigs, do not have the elevating and refining influences that those do who come from sweet, clean homes surrounded with green grass and blooming trees, among whose leafy boughs happy birds build their nests and warble their sweet melodies. That there is no employment more healthful than fruit growing, all who study the health question will admit. The pale-faced men and women of our cities pine for the green fields and groves of the country. Many of the great commercial class herded in crowded cities love to think and sing:—
> “How dear to my heart are the scenes
> of my childhood,
> When fond recollection presents
> them to view—
> The orchard, the meadow, the deep,
> tangled wildwood,
> And every loved spot that my in-
> fancy knew.” The cities are not the best places for developing noble, strong men and sweet, loving women. Brick walls, smoking chimneys, the noise and confusion of the streets, do not refine and develop the moral qualities of men as do the fields of green and golden grain, blooming trees, and fruit-laden orchards. Man’s new and everlasting home will be adorned with trees and flowers. “The glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon.” The glory of Lebanon was its trees; the excellency of Carmel, its flowers. We are told of one tree in the midst of the paradise of God, bearing “twelve manner of fruits,” and yielding its “fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree” are “for the healing of the nations.”