446 A DISSERTATION ON THE 
it excludes ‘Crabtree.’ There is, however, 
this difference in the two words. ‘ Crabtree’’ is 
Anglo-Saxon. Wilding, as far as I at present 
am aware, isnot. And yet Crabtree and Wild- 
ing are two English names given to the selfsame 
indigenous tree, the Pyrus Malus, Linn.—or Wild 
Apple Tree. Wilding, then, must have been 
introduced into the English tongue from some 
other dialect. And far as my researches yet 
extend, I know of no word in the Scandinavian 
and Teutonic dialects, except the Netherlandish 
*‘wildeling,” which has the same signification, 
and whence it could be imported into English. 
And this might have been done during the reign 
of Edward III., when he encouraged over into 
the kingdom numbers from the Low Countries, 
either to introduce or improve the manufactory 
of woollens, and located them in different parts 
of the country; but particularly A.D. 1338, at 
Kendal, in Westmoreland, and in the vicinity of 
this town, as at Bury and Rochdale. And as 
this was long posterior to the Conquest, when 
the names of persons began to be derived from 
their residences; and as these colonists were 
settled chiefly in towns, and thence had little 
chance of imposing names upon places—it ap- 
pears more probable that they introduced the 
