TO THE READER Ixxxiii 



And now you have in part what I had to produce in 

 extenuation of this Adventure ; that Animated with a Com- 

 mand^ and Assisted by divers Worthy Persons (whose Names 

 I am prone to celebrate with all just Respects) I have pre- 

 sumed to cast in my Symbol ; which, with the rest that are 

 to follow, may (I hope) be in some degree serviceable to 

 him (who ere the happy Person be) that shall oblige the 

 World with that compleat Systeme of Agriculture, which as yet 

 seems a desideratum, and wanting to its full perfection. It 

 is (I assure you) what is one of the Principal designs of the 

 ROYAL SOCIETY, not in this Particular only, but 

 through all the Liberal and more useful Arts ; and for which 

 (in the estimation of all equal Judges} it will merit the 

 greatest of Encouragements ; that so, at last, what the Learned 

 Columella has wittily reproached, and complained of, as a 

 defect in that Age of his, concerning Agriculture in general, 

 and is applicable here, may attain its desired Remedy and 

 Consummation in This of Ours. 



Sola enim Res Rustica, quae sine dubitatione proxima, & quasi 

 consanguinea Sapientiae est, tarn discentibus eget, quam magistris : 

 Adhuc enim Scholas Rhetorum, s? Geometrarum, Musicorum- 

 que, vel quod magis mirandum est, contemptissimorum vitiorum 

 officinas, gulosius condiendi cibos, &? luxurio sius fercula struendi, 

 capitumque & capillorum concinnatores, non solum esse audivi, sed 

 & ipse vidi ; Agricolationis neque Doctores qui se profiterentur, 

 neque Discipulos cognovi. But this I leave for our Peruk'd 

 Gallants to interpret, and should now apply my self to the 

 Directive Part, which I am all this while bespeaking, if after 

 what I have said in the several Paragraphs of the ensuing 

 Discourse upon the Argument of Wood, (and which in this 

 Fourth Edition coming Abroad with innumerable Improve- 



1 Praefat ad P. Silvinum ; which I earnestly recommend to the serious perusal 

 of our Gentry. Et mihi ad sapientis vitam proximd videtur accedere. Cic. de 

 Senectute. 



