You know, this reminds me of a mongolian story of a man who found a small grove of fruit trees on the plains. Not many groves grew out there, and he was just lucky he stumbled upon it. Selling the fruit made him rich, and the fruit was good eating. But he began to pick all the fruit as soon as it got ripe to sell it instead of leaving a few pieces behind to go to seed. When trees were caught in a blight, he cut those out, but only a few trees remained. Again he jealously guarded the few trees and picked all the fruit there to sell, never thinking to leave some to hit the ground and go to seed. When one of the periodic wildfires came through, his last few trees were gone and he didn't have any way to replace them. No more fruit to sell, he began to sell his belongings to just survive, until all he had left were his clothing, one horse, and his yurt. But then he saw others were selling the same fruit. Angry, he demanded to know where they got the trees. Some people had left the fruit too long after buying them and the fruit rotted, so they harvested the seeds. Now there were many more groves out there, carefully tended, but due to his greed, he was now the one who had to buy the fruit, for he had no more to sell.