To make a Barren Tree bear Fruit
Having girt and tucked up your clothes, and having taken an axe or hatchet, approach the tree with resentment, wishing to cut it down: but when any body comes to you, and deprecates the cutting of it, as if responsible for a future crop, seem to be persuaded, and to spare the tree, and it will fruit well in future.
Thomas Owen, Agricultural Pursuits (a translation of Geoponika, 1805-6)
quoted in Lost Crafts: Rediscovering Traditional Skills by Una McGovern