BOOK I, PREFACE 21-24 



entire subject, like the immensity of some great 

 body, or the minuteness of its several parts, as so 

 many separate members, I am afraid that my last 

 day may overtake me before I can comprehend the 

 entire subject of rural discipline. 



For one v^^ho would profess to be a master of this 22 

 science must have a shrewd insight into the works 

 of nature ; he must not be ignorant of the variations 

 of latitude, that he may have ascertained what is 

 suitable to every region and what is incompatible. 

 He should tell over in his mind the rising and setting 

 of the stars, that he may not begin his operations 

 when rains and winds are threatening, and so bring 

 his toils to naught. He must observe the behaviour 23 

 of the current weather and season, for they do not 

 always wear the same habit as if according to a fixed 

 rule ; summer and winter do not come every year 

 with the same countenance ; the spring is not always 

 rainy or the autumn moist. These matters I cannot 

 believe that any man can know beforehand without 

 the light of intelligence and without the most 

 accurate instruction. Indeed, it is granted to few 

 to discern what the veiy diversity of land and the 

 nature of each soil may deny us, or what they may 

 promise us. Of how many, in fact, is it the lot to 24 

 survey all parts of this science, so as thoroughly to 

 understand the practice of cropping and ploughing 

 and to have an accurate knowledge of the varied and 

 very unlike types of soil (of which some deceive us by 

 their colour, some by their texture ; in some lands 

 the black soil which they call pulla, as in Campania, 

 is commended ; in others a fat, glutinous soil answers 



* his SA, Lundstrom : aliis R, et vulgo. 

 ' lubrica SAR, Lundstrom : rubrica alii. 



19 



