Apples from an Old Tree were gifted to a landlord. The landlord liked them so much he had the Tree transplanted closer to him. This killed the Tree. Shame!
Greed often results in calamity.
L’Estrange version
A certain farmer had one choice apple-tree in his orchard that he valu’d above all the rest, and he made his landlord every year a present of the fruit on’t. He lik’d the apples so very well, that nothing would serve him but transplanting the tree into his own grounds. It withered presently upon the removal, and so there was an end of both fruit and tree together. The news was no sooner brought to the landlord, but he brake out into this reflexion upon it: This comes, says he, of transplanting an old tree, to gratifie an extravagant appetite: whereas if I could have contented my self with the fruit, and left my tenant the tree still, all had been well.
Moral
Nature has her certain methods and seasons for the doing of everything, and there must be no trying of experiments to put her out of her course.
