Allowing for the changes wrought by time and cultivation, we can still
perceive the truth of what Tacitus wrote of Germany almost two thousand
years ago:--"The land, though somewhat varied in aspect, is in the main
deformed with dismal forests and foul marshes. The part next to Gaul is
wetter, and that next to Pannonia and Noricum higher and more windy. It
is sufficiently productive, but not adapted to fruit-trees." The whole
country lies in a high latitude,--Munich, though in the southern part,
being forty-eight degrees North. No large city on the continent lies at
such an elevation,--about eighteen hundred feet above the level of the
Adriatic. In the midst of a vast plain, it is exposed to all winds. Its
site and the surrounding country are a great gravel-bed, hundreds of
feet thick, a deposit from the Alps, spurs of which are within thirty
miles on the south, subjecting the whole region to sudden changes of
weather ranging in a few hours through many degrees of Fahrenheit. The
air is raw and chilly, and although many parts of Germany have since the
days of Tacitus developed an adaptation to the vine and other fruits,
none flourish in the neighborhood of Munich.
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