The world teems with a profusion of kinds and varieties of edible fruits and no effort will be made here to consider all of them individually. A few of the more commonly known fruits will be briefly noticed. They will be considered alphabetically, rather than under their classifications.

Apples: These fruits are poor in vitamin C and are not especially rich in B, but added to a scurvy-producing diet, they prevent scurvy. They are also described as curative in scurvy.

Apples contain calcium, phosphorus, sulphur, iron and magnesia. Their phosphoric acid is in the most soluble form, while the iron in the apple is more easily taken into the blood than iron from any other source. Dr. Tilden especially recommends apples for rachitic children, and for building good bones and teeth. Dr. Claunch stated that cavities in his teeth healed while he was on an apple diet. There are many varieties of apples, all of them a delight to the sense of taste, and they are obtainable throughout the year.

Avocado: The avocado is coming more and more into popularity and as its cultivation increases, is destined to become one of the finest articles of diet on the American bill-of-fare. At present the best avocados we get in this country are raised in California. Florida and West Indian avocados are not as tasty as California avocados and do not possess the food value of the latter. A good California avocado contains about 3.39% protein. This is about the protein content of milk and that of the avocado is equal to the protein of milk in its content of amino acids essential to growth and repair. It is low in carbohydrates, containing but 2.9% of these of which 1% is invert sugar. They are rich in a very tasty emulsified oil which has a high degree (about 93.8%) of digestibility. The total minerals of a good California avocado amount to 1.18% of the total edible portion. This includes an ample proportion of the bases: calcium, potassium, magnesium and sodium. It contains considerable iron while phosphorus is found in generous combination with its protein. Copper, essential to the assimilation of iron, and manganese are present in smaller quantities. The avocado contains liberal supplies of several of the vitamins. It is a good source of thiamin (B1 and ribofla/in (B2 or G) and is a fair source of A and C (ascorbic acid). The avocado requires no preparation, but is ready to eat when it reaches the mellow stage. Due to its high fat content it is not wise to eat it with other protein foods.

Bananas: The banana is a tropical plant and together with figs, dates and a host of other such fruits, are demonstrations that nature has not designed sweet fruits for cold regions and juicy and sub-acid fruits for the tropics. People who live on banana plantations consume them in large quantities and withstand the heat well. Figs and dates are favorite foods of the desert peoples.

Chemical analysis shows the banana to contain: water 73.3 per cent; protein 1.3 per cent; fat .06 per cent; total carbohydrates 22 per cent; mineral element .8 per cent. The mineral content of the banana is largely potash, sodium and chlorine. Lime and iron exist in but small amounts.

Prof. Jaffa says that green bananas contain: sugar .94, starch 22.26. Ripe bananas contain sugar 18.87, starch, .82. When bananas are thoroughly ripened the almost indigestible starch of the green banana has been converted into an almost pre-digested sugar ready for immediate absorption. A well-ripened banana is almost predigested. It is then good for food, not before.

Bananas are rich in vitamins A and B, which promote growth. The antiscorbutic vitamin C is abundant in bananas. Vitamin D, which is supposed to prevent rickets, is said by some investigators to be deficient, although Berg declares it is present in sufficient quantity. Vitamin E, which is supposed to promote fertility, is present although its quantity is supposed to be small.

Tested on rats, banana protein proves to be inadequate; yet there is a So. American parrot that lives exclusively on bananas and attains an age that makes the oldest rat look like a day-old infant. The fecal discharges of this parrot have the fragrance of bananas and are as inoffensive as bananas themselves.

Banana protein has been proven to be of about equal value to those of grains and potatoes. "An abundant supply of bananas," says Berg, "is a guarantee that the food will contain an excess of bases," although there may be a partial lack of calcium salts. They are too poor in calcium to be adequate growth promoters. Bananas plus nuts, plus green vegetables would make an adequate diet for child or adult and for a pregnant or a lactating mother.

Berg says: "Bailey Ashford relates that indigenes convalescing from yellow fever, eat nothing but bananas, consuming from thirty to forty of these fruits daily without any supplement whatever, health and strength returning in a marvellously short time. I have myself proved that, after habituation to the strange diet, it is possible to live very well on bananas and butter, with a much lower consumption of protein than is requisite, for instance, upon a wheaten diet."

Thousands of rubber gatherers perform prodigious feats of muscular strength and endurance on almost no other food than bananas. The banana is higher in nutritive value than any other fresh fruit. Mr. Mcfadden, who once declared the banana to be a complete food, thought one could live a life-time on it and be thoroughly nourished, providing only, that the bananas were eaten when thoroughly ripened. He stated that he had known many athletes of more than ordinary ability to live almost entirely on bananas for an extended period and maintain their strength to a high degree on this food.

There is little doubt that a mature individual could live for some time on bananas alone, without any appreciable decrease in strength or health, and this is especially true if the bananas eaten had fully ripened on the tree. But bananas do not form a complete food and one could not live a life-time on these alone. Mr. Mcfadden made the above statement at a time when we knew less about the life-sustaining and growth promoting value of foods than now. He was not for from right, at that.

Bananas that are shipped are pulled green and are ripened after reaching the dealer. They are usually sold to the consumer and eaten by him in only a partially ripened state. Often they are sold with green tips. More often, however, the banana is all yellow. A yellow banana is still an unripe banana. A fully ripened banana is flecked with little brown spots. It resembles the complexion of a much freckled boy, except the banana freckles are darker and become black. Fully ripened bananas are usually sold much cheaper than the unripe ones because they do not keep long after ripening. It is just then, however, that they should be eaten.

No fruit that is pulled green and ripened afterwards, is as good as are those that are permitted to ripen on the tree. The ripening process is less complete, their food value is not so great, their flavor is not so delightful. These things are due to two chief causes: (1) they are deprived of the sap from the tree, and (2) they are deprived of the influence of the sun's rays.