64 Wisconsin State Horticultural Society. 



The ancient lake dwellers of Parma, Lombardy, Savoy and 

 Switzerland who were probably as ancient as the seige of 

 Troy, or may be as the founding of Rome only appear to 

 have made great use of the apple. They split them length- 

 wise and dried them for their winter store as the New 

 Zealander's before and after Cook's visit, were wont to do 

 with sundry wild fruits of their islands. 



Prof. Heer, of Zurich, examined the specimens found in 

 the lacustrine deposits with great minuteness and becamo 

 satisfied that at a period, when the use of metals and hemp 

 were still unknown there were two distinct kinds of apples 

 thus stored, of these the smaller were possibly wild, while 

 the larger kind were probably cultivated, and appear to 

 correspond with an apple grown to this day in the Ger- 

 man speaking cantons of Switzerland under the name of 

 Campanea. 



Prof. De Candolle thinks that the apple existed both in a 

 wild and cultivated state in Europe, in pre-historic times, 

 and that the first attempts of cultivation were made in- 

 dependently in different localities, " in the dim past beyond 

 historic ken." 



"iCyder or Seider was made from apples " by the Teutons 

 long before the Roman period. 



The apple being regarded as the most excellent of fruits 

 has appropriated the Latin^name pomona, signifying, gen- 

 erically, fruit of all kinds, and specifically, fruit with 

 abundance of seeds, as apples, pears, quinces, figs, pome- 

 granates and the like. 



Hence, much confusion of ideas concerning Adams' 

 apple, as to whether it was really an apple, or a fig, or a 

 pomegranate or some other fruit conspicuously provided 

 with means of reproduction. 



Mythologically the apple may be regarded as the symbol 

 of reproduction. In Servia, when a girl accepts an apple 

 from her lover she is considered to be engaged. Among the 

 sclaves of Hungary, after an interchange of rings, the lover 

 gives an apple to his betrothed in token of marriage. 



In Sicily, it is a custom with young girls on St John's day, 

 (Midsummer day) to throw an apple from their chamber 



