BOOK II. I. 3-6 



stored. But on the contrary, when the soil, whether 

 abandoned deliberately or by chance, is cultivated 

 anew, it repays the farmer with heavy interest for 

 its periods of idleness. <* The antiquity of the earth, 4 

 thei-efore, is not the reason for the scantiness of her 

 fruits — if, I mean, when once old age sets in, it takes 

 no backward step and has no power to grow vigorous 

 and young again — but not even the weariness of the 

 soil lessens its fruits for the farmer. For it is not Uke 

 a man of intelligence to be persuaded that, as in the 

 case of human beings exhaustion follows immoderate 

 physical exertion or the bearing of some heavy 

 burden, just so does it follow cultivation and activity 

 on the part of the land. What then, you say, does 5 

 Tremelius mean by his assertion that virginal and 

 wooded areas, when they are first cultivated, yield 

 abundantly, but soon thereafter are not so responsive 

 to the toil of those who work them ? He observes, 

 undoubtedly, what occurs, but does not under- 

 stand thoroughly why it happens. For ground that is 

 new and but recently taken out of its wooded state 

 and brought under cultivation should not be regarded 

 as more fruitful on this account, because it has lain 

 fallow longer and is younger; but because, in the 

 leaves and herbage of many years, which it has kept 

 producing naturally, fattened, so to speak, with more 

 plentiful nourishment, it more readily satisfies the 

 requirements for bringing forth crops and supporting 

 them. But when the roots of the plants, broken by 6 

 mattocks and ploughs, and when the trees, cut down 

 by the axe, cease to nourish their mother with their 

 foUage ; when the leaves which fell from bushes and 



" Lundstrom restores the reading of the best manuscripts, 

 preferred also by Pontedera as cessatorum (^temporumy . 



107 



