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.

The tree is mentioned in at least three places in the Old Testament,
and its fruit in two or three more. Solomon sings, "As the apple-tree
among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons." And
again, "Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples." The noblest part
of man's noblest feature is named from this fruit, "the apple of the
eye."

The apple-tree is also mentioned by Homer and Herodotus. Ulysses saw in
the glorious garden of Alcinous "pears and pomegranates and apple-trees
bearing beautiful fruit." And according to Homer, apples were among the
fruits which Tantalus could not pluck, the wind ever blowing their
boughs away from him. Theophrastus knew and described the apple-tree as
a botanist.

According to the prose Edda,[3] "Iduna keeps in a box the apples which
the gods, when they feel old age approaching, have only to taste of to
become young again. It is in this manner that they will be kept in
renovated youth until Ragnarok" (or the destruction of the Gods).

[3] The stories of the early Scandinavians.

I learn from Loudon[4] that "the ancient Welsh bards were rewarded for
excelling in song by the token of the apple-spray;" and "in the
Highlands of Scotland the apple-tree is the badge of the clan Lamont."

[4] An English authority on the culture of orchards and gardens.

The apple-tree belongs chiefly to the northern temperate zone. Loudon
says, that "it grows spontaneously in every part of Europe except the
frigid zone, and throughout Western Asia, China and Japan." We have
also two or three varieties of the apple indigenous in North America.
The cultivated apple-tree was first introduced into this country by the
earliest settlers, and is thought to do as well or better here than
anywhere else. Probably some of the varieties which are now cultivated
were first introduced into Britain by the Romans.

Pliny, adopting the distinction of Theophrastus, says, "Of trees there
are some which are altogether wild, some more civilized." Theophrastus
includes the apple among the last; and, indeed,