Wild Apples | Page 4

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 early Scandinavians.] "Iduna
keeps in a box the apples which the gods, when they feel old age approaching, have only
to taste of to become young again. It is in this manner that they will be kept in renovated
youth until Ragnarok" (or the destruction of the Gods).
I learn from Loudon [Footnote: An English authority on the culture of orchards and
gardens.] that "the ancient Welsh bards were rewarded for excelling in song by the token
of the apple-spray;" and "in the Highlands of Scotland the apple-tree is the badge of the
clan Lamont."
The apple-tree belongs chiefly to the northern temperate zone. Loudon says, that "it
grows spontaneously in every part of Europe except the frigid zone, and throughout
Western Asia, China and Japan." We have also two or three varieties of the apple
indigenous in North America. The cultivated apple-tree was first introduced into this
country by the earliest settlers, and is thought to do as well or better here than anywhere
else. Probably some of the varieties which are now cultivated were first introduced into
Britain by the Romans.

Pliny, adopting the distinction of Theophrastus, says, "Of trees there are some which are
altogether wild, some more civilized." Theophrastus includes the apple among the last;
and, indeed, it is in this sense the most civilized of all trees. It is as harmless as a dove, as
beautiful as a rose, and as valuable as flocks and herds. It has been longer cultivated than
any other, and so is more humanized; and who knows but, like the dog, it will at length
be no longer traceable to its wild original? It migrates with man, like the dog and horse
and cow; first, perchance, from Greece to Italy, thence to England, thence to America;
and our Western emigrant is still marching steadily toward the setting sun with the seeds
of the apple in his pocket, or perhaps a few young trees strapped to his load. At least a
million apple-trees are thus set farther westward this year than any cultivated ones grew
last year. Consider how the Blossom-Week, like the Sabbath, is thus annually spreading
over