thence in English to the
epithet Love Apples, a perversion which shows by what curious
methods primary names may become incongruously changed. They
are also called Gold Apples from their bright yellow colour before
getting ripe. The term _Lycopersicum_ signifies a "wolf's peach,"
because some parts of the plant are thought to excite animal
passions.

The best fruit is supposed to grow within sight, or smell of the sea.
It needs plenty of sunlight and heat. The quicker it is produced the
fewer will be the seeds discoverable in its pulp.

[568] Green when young, Tomatoes acquire a bright yellow hue
before reaching maturity, and when ripe they are smooth, shining,
furrowed, and of a handsome red.

Chemically this Love Apple contains citric and malic acids: and it
further possesses oxalic acid, or oxalate of potash, in common with
the Sorrel of our fields, and the Rhubarb of our kitchen gardens. On
which account each of this vegetable triad is ill suited for gouty
constitutions disposed to the formation of irritating oxalate of lime
in the blood. With such persons a single indulgence in Tomatoes,
particularly when eaten raw, may provoke a sharp attack of gout.

Otherwise there are special reasons for supposing the Tomato to be
a wholesome fruit of remarkable purifying value.

Dr. King Chambers classifies it among remedies against scurvy,
telling us that Tomatoes mixed with brown bread make a capital
sauce for costive persons. And the fruit owns a singular property in
connection with diseases of plants, suggesting its probable worth as
protective against bacterial germs, and microbes of disease in our
bodies when it is taken as food, or medicinally. If a Tomato shrub
be uprooted at the end of the summer, and allowed to wither on the
bough of a fruit tree, or if it be burnt beneath the fruit tree, it
will not only kill any blight which may be present, but will also
preserve the tree against any future invasion by blight. The hostility
thus evinced by the plant to low organisms is due to the presence of
sulphur, which the Tomato shrub largely contains, and which is
rendered up in an active state by decay, or by burning. Now
remembering that digestion likewise splits up the Tomato into its
chemical constituents, and releases its sulphur within us, we may
fairly assume that persons [570] who eat Tomatoes habitually are
likely to have a particular immunity from bacterial and putrefactive
diseases.

Wherefore it is altoge