TO THE READER. 



35 



" that the greatest Patriarchs, Princes, 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 liye upon their estates ; so as by the time the son's beard is 

 " grown, he begins to be ashamed of his father, and would be ready to 

 " defy 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 plough with the father." 

 " 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 managed by 

 « the most ignorant, the children whom they leave at home, or the 

 " hinds to whom they commit them ; when, as in truth and reason, the 

 " more learning, the better philosophers, and the greater abilities they 

 " possess, the more and better they are qualified to cultivate and improve 

 " their estates." Methinks this is well and rationally argued. 



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

 this adventure : that, animated with a command, and assisted by divers 

 worthy persons, (whose names I am prone to celebrate with all just re- 

 spects,) I have presumed to cast in my symbol ; which, with the rest that 

 are to follow, may, I hope, be in some degree serviceable to him (who- 

 ever the happy person may be) that shall oblige the world with that 

 complete system of Agriculture, which as yet seems a desideratum, and 

 wanting to its full perfection. This, I assure you, is one of the principal 

 designs of the Royal Society, not in this particular only, but through all 

 the liberal and more useful arts ; 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 appli- 

 cable here, may attain its desired remedy and consummation in this of 

 ours. 



« Sola Res Rustica, qu£e sine dubitatione proxima, et quasi consan- p, 

 guinea Sapientiae est, tarn discentibus egeat, quam magistris : Adhuc nestly recom. 

 « enim Scholas Rhetorum, et Geometrarum, Musicorumque, vel quod s«Tous'Vn'- 

 " magis mirandum est, contemptissimorum vitiorum officinas, gulosius gemry!*^ 



Prffifat. ad 

 Silvinum ; 

 which I ear- 



