Litchfield Enquirer

GREEN FRUITS.

One can hardly walk in the street without seeing children with their hands full of green apples or some other unripe fruit. No doubt they have many a moral, and sometimes learned lecture on the folly of their conduct. 'They will certainly make you sick, says one parent. 'They will kill you, says another. 'Do you not know says a third, 'that John Thompson died the other day of eating green apples?' But the temptation is too strong to be overcome. Green fruit is exhibited in market in the shops, and at the corners of the streets. Besides this, trees not unfrequently stand on the highway, whose fruits are regarded by many children as lawful plunder. They venture to eat them; and in spite of the solemn warning of the parent, they find themselves alive and well. They eat again, and again; other children do the same; it is ten to one but the parents buy a little which for any thing the child can see is as green as that which they proscribe: yet they are not sick they do not die. Or if they die, it is of fever or some other disease. John Thompson died of fever: so the physician said.

But can parents expect children to refrain from eating green fruit under these circumstances? Can they expect to be believed when they speak of its hurtful tendency? Why do they not tell them the truth, and no more; and set them a good example? Example, after all, is in this, as well as other things, better than precept.

Let us take a survey of the training, to which our children are in this respect subjected. Peas are eaten much too young; but these we will omit, we are not aware that it is yet customary to eat the blossoms. Currants are suffered to remain on the bushes till they have attained the size of a pepper corn, before they make a healthy dish. Strawberries and cherries seldom come to market till they begin to redden.

Now for cucumbers! These may, to be eaten, according to custom; both raw and green, or undergo some kind of cookery, which renders it rather less pernicious than before. (we are not quite sure of the fact however, but talk of boiling, or baking, or stewing, or roasting a cucumber ; or of letting it grow to that maturity. to.

Next, perhaps, we have new potatoes, in the shape of new ones can be obtained. A ripe potatoe ! Why the man is a fool to tell us that potatoes ought to be ripe before they are eaten. For my part I eat them as soon as they are large enough. I never want them larger than a peach.'

Green corn closes our present list. Oh how delicious! You who talk about health, surely you will not inveigh against roast corn--and boiled corn--and succotash !'

Bread, from the meal of ripe corn must be despised, forsooth; while that which is half grown, and fit only to disorder the digestive organs of the few animals that will eat it, is esteemed a delicacy.

To be serious. There is no opinion better supported than that most vegetables and fruits when fully matured, and their juices and other properties fully developed, if eaten in moderate quantities, and as a part of our usual meals, are not only wholesome and nutritious, but a preventive of disease. They are distributed in abundance by a kind Providence, precisely at the period when almost every thing tends to favor diseases of the stomach and first passages, as if to counteract that tendency. But man not satisfied with the Creator's arrangements, and unwilling to wait for his gifts with patience, eagerly snatches them-prematurely, and we see, and too often feel the consequences.

I have wondered again and again at our folly especially in regard to cucumbers. Do they contain nourishment ?--Pray, what is it; sugar sarina starch ? No, none of these. But they are made to eat.' This is begging the question. They are eaten, we know; and eaten both raw and green; and in most enormous quantities. Yet we should like to see the individual who was ever the better for their use; while we know that the ravages of cholera morbus and dysentery have been facilitated by them.

But I have used these things all my days, and yet am healthy. ' So I have heard persons say of spirits, at 70 or 80 years of age. Lead is a slow but sure poison to the human system. Yet while a dozen persons may be exposed to its deleterious effects in some manufactory, those who are feeble will sink under it; while now and then an individual of robust constitution will reach a very considerable age. Standing over the graves of his poisoned companions he tells us, 'Oh, lead is harmless ; I have breathed its fumes all my days, and am yet healthy. Shall we believe him?

Conn. Observer.