PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 235 



name seba is Hindustani, and comes from the Persian 

 seb, sef. The absence of an earlier name in India argues 

 that the now common cultivation of the apple in Kashmir 

 and Thibet, and especially that in the north-west and 

 central provinces of India, is not very ancient. The tree 

 was probably ^nown only to the western Aryans. 



This people had in all probability a name of which 

 the root was ab, af, av, ob, as this root recurs in several 

 European names of Aryan origin. Pictet gives aball, 

 ubhall, in Erse; afal in Kymric; aval in Armoricanj 

 aphal in old High German ; appel in old English ; apli in 

 Scandinavian ; obolys in Lithuanian ; iabluko in ancient 

 Slav; iabloko in Russian.' It would appear from this that 

 the western Aryans, finding the apple wild or already 

 naturalized in the north of Europe, kept the name under 

 which they had known it. The Greeks had imailea or 

 Tnaila, the Latins Tnal/tis, malum,, words whose origin, 

 according to Pictet, is very uncertain. The Albanians, 

 descendants of the Pelasgians, have ttvoU} Theophrastus ^ 

 mentions wild and cultivated maila. Lastly, the Basques 

 (ancient Iberians) have an entirely different name, sagara, 

 which implies an existence in Europe prior to the Aryan 

 invasions. 



The inhabitants of the terra-mare of Parma, and of 

 the palafittes of the lakes of Lombardy, Savoy, and Swit- 

 zerland, made great use of apples. They always cut 

 them lengthways, and preserved them dried as a provision 

 for the winter. The specimens are often carbonized by 

 fire, but the internal structure of the fruit is only the 

 more clearly to be distinguished. Heer,* who has shown 

 great penetration in observing these details, distinguishes 

 two varieties of the apple known to the inhabitants of 

 the lake-dwellings before they possessed metals. The 

 smaller kind are 15 to 24 mm. in their longitudinal 

 diameter, and about 3 mm. more across (in their dried 

 and carbonized state) ; the larger, 29 to 32 mm. length- 

 ways by 36 wide (dried, but not carbonized). The latter 



• Heldretch, Nutzpflanzen Qriechenlandt, i. p. 64. 



• TheophraBtns, De Gausis, lib. 6, cap. 24. 



• Heer, Pfahlba/uten, p. 24, figa. 1-7. 



