eed, though not universally. One of these is, that fruits, if eaten
at all, should usually form a part of a regular meal. Another is, that
it is better not to eat them immediately before going to bed.

There are contradictory opinions among the mass of the community,
physicians as well as others, on the general intention of our summer
fruits. From the fact that children's diseases prevail more at the
season of the year when fruits are more abundant, many think the fruits
are the immediate cause of them. Others, and with better reason, suppose
that the latter are intended by the Author of nature to check or prevent
the bowel diseases of summer.

Nothing, certainly, is more unnatural than to suppose that at the very
season of the year when so many other influences combine to awaken a
tendency to disease in the human system, the Creator should place before
our eyes an abundance of fruits, inviting us by all their cooling and
tempting properties, only to do us mischief. On the contrary, it seems
to me much more probable that many of them were designed for our
moderate use. In what quantity, under what circumstances, and which are
best, it is left to human experience to determine.

Some say that fruit should never be eaten in the morning, before
breakfast. Now everything I know of the human constitution, together
with what I have learned from experience and observation, has been for
years leading me to the contrary opinion. Indeed, I am most fully
convinced, that of all periods for eating fruit, whether we use it alone
or make it a part of our regular meals, the morning, soon after we rise,
is the most favorable. [Footnote: I ought to remark, that as the morning
is the best time for eating _good_ fruit, so it is the very worst time
for eating it if _not_ good; and as a large proportion of that which is
eaten is unripe, or otherwise bad, this may account for the general
prejudice against eating it at this period.] My reasons are as follows:

1. The rest and sleep of the preceding night has restored our general
vigor, and consequently has invigorated the stomach, so that digestion
will be more easily and perfectly accomplished.

2. We have been, at our rising, so long without food on our stomachs,
that they are not likely to be oppressed by a moderate quantity of good,
ripe, wholesome fruit. In the course of our waking hours, meals follow
each other in such quick succession, and there is so much variety, even
at the plaine