De Virtutibus

Moreover, if nothing is to be done in favour of one’s enemies because of any hope of reconciliation, still, at all events, no plant is an enemy, but all plants are at peace with and useful to one. And those which produce eatable fruit are exceedingly necessary, as their fruit is either actual food or equivalent to food. And why should men be excited to enmity against things which are not hostile, cutting them down, or burning them, or tearing them up by the roots; things which nature herself has brought to perfection by streams of water, and by the admirable temperature of the summer, so that they contribute annual revenues to mankind as subjects to their kings?

Moses, therefore, as a good superintendant, exerted all care to implant, not only in animals, but also in plants, invincible strength and vigour, and especially in such as produce eatable fruit, since they are worthy of more care, and are not of equal

for he commands the young plants to be nursed carefully for the space of three years, while the husbandman prunes away the superfluous off-shoots, in order that the trees may not be weighed down and exhausted by them, in which case the fruit borne by them would become small and weak through insufficiency of nourishment, and he must also dig round it and clear the ground, in order that no injurious plant may grow near it, so as to hinder its growth. And he does not allow the fruit to be gathered out of season at any one’s pleasure, not only because, if that were done, it would be imperfect and produced from imperfect trees (for so also animals which are not perfect themselves cannot produce a perfect offspring), but also because the young plants themselves would be injured, and would in a manner be bowed down and kept as creepers on the earth, by being prevented from shooting up into straight and stout trunks.