Wild Apples

It is remarkable how closely the history of the Apple-tree is connected with thatof man. The geologist tells us that the order of the Rosaceae, which includes theApple, also the true Grasses, and the Labiatae, or Mints, were introduced only ashort time previous to the appearance of man on the globe.It appears that apples made a part of the food of that unknown primitive peoplewhose traces have lately been found at the bottom of the Swiss lakes, supposed tobe 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 wildapples, among other things.Niebuhr[1] observes that "the words for a house, a field, a plough, ploughing, wine, oil, milk, sheep, apples, and others relating to agriculture and the gentlerways of life, agree in Latin and Greek, while the Latin words for all objectspertaining to war or the chase are utterly alien from the Greek." Thus the appletree may be considered a symbol of peace no less than the olive