The Lord praises sheep, wheat, tame olive trees, etc bc they take no thought for their own nourishment – everything they get they give away If there is no Cultivator obviously this is a very stupid way to live.

The parable of the olive trees in Jacob 5 introduces gradations of tameness & wildness The lord of the vineyard doesn’t just kill the wild & save the tame – he gradually prunes away the hard, woody, wild portions of each tree.

But we also learn that tame branches are prone to decadence & decay – & the solution is to graft strong, wild root systems with hungry, tame boughs that will draw out their strength It’s not just “tame good, wild bad”, both are necessary which is why both are allowed to persist

-from ExDeJCB

Its interesting to read Jacob 5 in this light.  I wonder also if it sheds light on the puzzling verses in the D&C about how the water is now cursed but used to be blessed, whereas the land is now blessed but used to be cursed.  Water can equal wildness or chaos.  (Weird connection I just made.  The most successful form of early food gathering was harvesting the sea.  Those are the oldest known permanently inhabited settlements.  Tillage appears to have been pretty rough when it got started.  But now agriculture is wildly successful and sea harvesting is not much more advanced than it used to be.)