Ixxxii TO THE READER 



Husbandry ; as, doubtless, considering it the most useful, 

 innocent and laudable Employment of our Life, requiring 

 those who cultivate the Ground to live in the Country, 

 remote from C/>y-Luxury, and the temptation to the Vices 

 he condemns. It was indeed a plain Man l (a Totter by Trade] 

 but let no body despise him because a "Potter (Agathodes, and 

 a King was of that Craft] who in my Opinion has given us 

 the true reason why Husbandry, and particularly 'Planting, 

 is no more improved in this Age of ours ; especially, where 

 Persons are Lords and Owners of much Land. The truth 

 is, says he, when Men have acquired any considerable 

 Fortune by their good Husbandry, and experience (forgetting 

 that the greatest ^Patriarchs, Trinces, their Sons and daughters, 

 belonged to the Plough, and the Flock} they account it a 

 shame to breed up their Children in the same Calling which 

 they themselves were educated in, but presently design them 

 Gentlemen : They must forsooth, have a Coat of Arms, and 

 live upon their Estates ; So as by the time his Sons Beard is 

 grown, he begins to be asham'd of his Father, and would be 

 ready to defie him, that should upon any occasion mind him 

 of his honest Extraction : And if it chance that the good Man 

 have other Children to provide for ; This must be the Darling, 

 be bred at School, and the University, whilst the rest must to 

 Cart and Tlow with the Father, &c. This is the Cause, 

 says my Author, that our Lands are so ill Cultivated and 

 neglected. Every body will subsist upon their own 'Revenue, 

 and take their ^Pleasure, whilst they resign their Estates to be 

 manag'd by the most Ignorant, which are the Children whom 

 they leave at home, or the Hinds to whom they commit 

 them. When as in truth, and in reason, the more Learning, 

 the better 'Philosophers, and the greater Abilities they possess, 

 the more, and the better are they qualified, to Cultivate, and im- 

 prove their Estates : Methinksthis is well and rationally argued. 



1 Palissy, le Moyen de devenir Riche. 



