PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE 135 



melior est simitium in similibus : for the nearer con- 

 sanguinity there is between the scions and the stock, 

 the readier comprehension is made and the nobler 

 fructification. According also unto the later caution 

 of Laurenbergius ; l arbores domestic* insitioni destinaU, 

 semper anteponcnda sylvestribus. And though the suc- 

 cess be good, and may suffice upon stocks of the same 

 denomination ; yet, to be grafted upon their own and 

 mother stock, is the nearest insition : which way, 

 though less practised of old, is now much embraced, 

 and found a notable way for melioration of the fruit, 

 and much the rather, if the tree to be grafted on be a 

 good and generous plant, a good and fair olive, as the 

 apostle seems to imply by a peculiar word, scarce to be 

 found elsewhere. 2 



It must be also considered, that the oleaster^ or wild 

 olive, by cutting, transplanting, and the best managery 

 of art, can be made but to produce such olives as 

 Theophrastus saith were particularly named phauTia, 

 that is, but bad olives ; and that it was among prodigies 

 for the oleaster to become an olive tree. 



And when insition and grafting, in the text, is applied 

 unto the olive tree, it hath an emphatical sense, very 



1 De Htrticultura. 



a KaWifKatov. Rom. xi. 14. 



