THE^aPPLE. 



HISTORY. 



If popular language and the earliest products of the 

 pictorial art v^eve admissible authorities, the apple 

 would be the earliest fruit of which we have any re- 

 cord, for they represent it as the cause of our first 

 parents' fall. There is no foundation for such tradi- 

 tion, however ; and as the Garden of Eden was pro- 

 bably in some hot latitude, the fruit of the tree 

 which was in the midst of the garden" reasonably 

 may be concluded to have been some species not 

 native of our European climate. It is quite true 

 that, in our translation of the old Testament, both 

 Solomon and the prophet Joel are represented as 

 alluding to the apple-tree and its fruit, but it is more 

 than doubtful whether that translation is correct. 

 Dr. Parkhurst and other distinguished Hebraists 

 consider that the tajopuach of the Jewish Scriptures 

 is the citron, and not the apple ; and the terse epi- 

 thets the sacred writers give to it are certainly most 

 applicable to the former. It was a comirion object of 

 cuhivation, a tree of the field" (Joel i. 12), which, 



B 



