Note 1338 — Chapter II · GARDEN AND ORCHARD.

In Syria and some other warm countries the olive was said to produce fruit in clusters. Theophrast. Hist. Plant. i. 11. 4. And when this fruit was found chiefly on the upper branches, they augured a productive year. id. i. 14. 2. Geop. ix. 2. 4. The ancients entertained extraordinary ideas concerning the purity of the olive, which they imagined bore more freely when cultivated by persons of chaste minds. Thus the olive-grounds of Anazarbos, in Cilicia, were thought to owe their extraordinary fertility to the reserved and modest manners of the youths who cultivated them. Id. ix. 2. 6.