The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1910-07-27
ProdigaIity.

No State Of the United States is SO blcst
with fruits. domestic and wild, as is South
Carolina.
There is no year with winter so severe
and protracted that fruit fails us altogeth'
or. So common and SO plentiful are our
fruits that We do not value them at thell
real worth, in fact many OF us, do not look
on them as having food value.
II there we're any way to form STATISTICS
of the amount Of fruit that will be utterly
NEGLECTED and wasted in South Carolina IN
the year 1910 the result would be astound-
ing and would rightly bring down on our
heads the severe condemnation OF those
students Of the economy Of living who
know JtheI important part that the fruit
crop should play in our living.
This waste does not go on in fruit farms.
There the fruit is systematically looked
after and harvested, but it does go on on
our farms and about our homes to an un-
reasonable extent.
Many times have you seen an apple tree
loaded with fruit which falls to the ground
to rot. Like Grey's flower born to blush
unseen. On asking a farmer why he did
not market the fruit from such trees he
replied. There is no use, l could not sell
them if 1 had them in town, and besides
have not the time to take them to market
because I am busy in my CROP.
And so the apples rot! Peaches, too, go
to waste in Abbeville County by the tons.
1t would seem that people guilty Of such
waste would suffer, and they do in a way.
They make their cotton but when the short
days and the long nights com many OF
them feel the need Of the fruit that was
wasted the previous summer.
There is much in what the farmer said
about the market. There is not always a
ready market for his orchard fruits.
Almost all the housekeepers have fruit OF
their own and do not 60 on the market to
provide themselves with such fruit, but
this Is not Sufficient reason for us to let
our .orchard fruits rot on the ground.
They may be dried or they may be pre-
served 80 as to keep for months and they
may be marketed In this form when 1t
would be impossible to do 80 as the fruit
ripens.
The %blackberries and the old field plums
that rot In Abbeville county each year
would sink the American Navy, and yet
these two fruits stand at the very top OF
the list in point Of nutritive and health
giving qualities.
Not long since several Chicogoans spent
the summer in Greenwood County. and
when the wild mulberries began to ripen
they began to get busy. True to the In
stinct to save all Of value they canned
mulberries to the intense amusement Of
the n%eighbors. The Chicagonans were
brought up in a different school Of econo-
my to that in which we receive our school
ing and it Is second nature to them to
save, and while we might draw the line at
canning mulberries still 1t might be well
forus to realize that we do waste tons OF
fruit that could be turned into healthy
food and even to money, had we the
energy to do 80.
There Is no excuse for the peaches and
apples to fall Off their stems and rot. 1t
were better that we change u law and
provide some means of turning them into
brandy rather than to have the fruit to go
thus utterly to waste.
The brandy proposition is n reason
there are 81 many peach trees scattered
over the farms.
Before the war each farmer made his
own brandy and to do this he had to have
peaches and apples. The brandy is gone
but the peach and the apple remain.
Let us use them somehow and not allow
this great food crop to go thus to waste.