xvi EVELYN'S " SYLVA " AND PRESENT TIMES 



need for planting was more urgent than it is at the 

 present time ! Evelyn continues : 



*' My next advice is, that they do not easily commit 

 themselves to the dictates of their ignorant hinds and 

 servants, who are, generally speaking, more fit to 

 learn than instruct. * Male agitur cum Domino quern 

 Villicus docet ' was an observation of old Cato's ; and 

 it was Ischomachus who told Socrates, discoursing 

 one day upon a like subject, * that it was far easier 

 to make than to find a good husbandman ' : I have 

 often proved it so in gardeners, and I believe it will 

 hold in most of our country employments. Country 

 people universally know that all trees consist of roots, 

 stems, boughs, leaves, etc., but can give no account of 

 the species, virtues or farther culture, besides the 

 making of a pit or hole, casting and treading in the earth, 

 etc., which require a deeper search than they are 

 capable of ; we are then to exact labour, not conduct 

 and reason, from the greatest part of them ; and the 

 business of planting is an Art or Science (for so Varro 

 has solemnly defined it) and very different from what 

 many in his time accounted of it ; ' Facillimam esse 

 nee ullius acuminis Rusticationem,' namely. That it was 

 an easy and insipid study. It was the Simple Culture 

 only, with so much difficulty retrieved from the late 

 confusion of an intestine and bloody war, like that of 

 ours, and now put in reputation again, which made 

 the Noble Poet write : 



Verbis ea vincere magnum 

 Quam fit, 6- angistis hunc addere rebus honorem / 



*' Seeing, as the Orator does himself express it, 

 ' Nihil est homine liber o dignius,' there is nothing more 

 becoming and worthy of a Gentleman, no, not the 



