essert 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."

In ancient times, Greece produced most excellent apples. They were the
favorite dessert of Phillip of Macedon and Alexander the Gre