No More Learning

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
shriveled crab-apple has been recovered from their stores.

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

Niebuhr observes that "the words for a house, a field, a plow,
plowing, wine, oil, milk, sheep, apples, and others relating to
agriculture and the gentler way 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 generally distributed, that its
name traced to its root in many languages signifies fruit in general.
? ? ? ? ? , 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.
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" (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?