Wild Apples

THE HISTORY OF THE APPLE-TREE.

It is remarkable how closely the history of the Apple-tree is
connected with that of man. The geologist tells us that the order of
the Rosaceae, which includes the Apple, also the true Grasses, and
the Labiatae, or Mints, were introduced only a short time previous
to the appearance of man on the globe.

It appears that apples made a part of the food of that unknown
primitive people whose traces have lately been found at the bottom
of the Swiss lakes, supposed to be older than the foundation of
Rome, so old that they had no metallic implements. An entire black
and shrivelled Crab-Apple has been recovered from their stores.

Tacitus says of the ancient Germans that they satisfied their hunger
with wild apples, among other things.

Niebuhr [Footnote: A German historical critic of ancient life.]
observes that "the words for a house, a field, a plough, ploughing,
wine, oil, milk, sheep, apples, and others relating to agriculture
and the gentler ways of life, agree in Latin and Greek, while the
Latin words for all objects pertaining to war or the chase are
utterly alien from the Greek." Thus the apple-tree may be considered
a symbol of peace no less than the olive.

The apple was early so important, and so generally distributed, that
its name traced to its root in many languages signifies fruit in
general. maelon (Melon), in Greek, means an apple, also the fruit of
other trees, also a sheep and any cattle, and finally riches in
general.

The apple-tree has been celebrated by the Hebrews, Greeks, Romans,
and Scandinavians. Some have thought that the first human pair were
tempted by its fruit. Goddesses are fabled to have contended for it,
dragons were set to watch it, and heroes were employed to pluck it.
[Footnote: The Greek myths especially referred to are The Choice of
Paris and The Apples of the Hesperides.]

The tree is mentioned in at least three places in the Old Testament,
and its fruit in two or three more. Solomon sings, "As the apple-
tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons."
And again, "Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples." The
noblest part of man's noblest feature is named from this fruit, "the
apple of the eye."

The apple-tree is also mentioned by Homer and Herodotus. Ulysses saw
in the glorious garden of Alcinous "pears and pomegranates and
apple-trees bearing beautiful fruit." And according to Homer, apples
were among the fruits which Tantalus could not pluck, the wind ever
blowing their boughs away from him. Theophrastus knew and described
the apple-tree as a botanist.

According to the prose Edda, [Footnote: The stories of the