Wild Apples

Name: Wild Apples
Author: Henry David Thoreau

by Henry David Thoreau

Pages: about 34
Category: Philosophy
Language: English
Reading time: 37 min at 250 wpm

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From the opening

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 Rosaceæ, which includes the Apple, also the true Grasses, and the Labiatæ, 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[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 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. Μῆλον (Mēlon), 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.[2]
[2] The Greek myths especially referred to are The Choice of Paris and The Apples of the Hesperides.

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Wild Apples

From the opening

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