TO THE READER, iij

telluri vestræ concredetis, modo prima initia illi dederitis, &c. Tet.

Bellonius De neglecta stirpium Cultura. Troblema ix.

MT next Advice is, that they do not easily commit themselvesto the Dictates of their ignorant Hinds and Servants, who are (ge-nerally speaking) more ft to Learn than to Instrult. Male agi- vide&cur-tur cum Domino quern Villicus docet, was an Observation of oldjsCato\r ; and 'twas Ischomachus who told Socrates (difcoursng oneDay upon a like Subjeli ) That it was far easier to Make thanto Find a good Husbandman : I have often prov’d it so in Gar-deners ; and I believe it will hold in mo ft of our Country Em-ployments : Country Teople universally know that all Trees consjlof Roots, Stems, Boughs, Leaves, &c. but can give no Account ofthe Species, "Venues, or farther Culture, besdes the making of aTit or Hole ; casting and treading in the Earth , SCc. which re-quire a deeper Search than they are capable of: We are then toexalt Labour, not Conduct and Reason, from the greatest Tartof them ; and the Business of Planting is an Art or Science (forso Varro has solemnly defined it) and that exceedingly wide os o e r.Truth, which (it seems) many in his Time accounted of it ; Fa-cillimam esse, nee ullius acuminis Rusticationem, namely, That itwas an easy and insipid Study. It was the simple Culture only,with so much Difficulty retrieved from the late Confusion of anintestine and bloody War, like that of Ours, and now put in Repu-tation again , which made the Noble Poet write,

— How hard it wasLow Subjects with illustrious Words to "race!

Ver bis eavincere magnum

Quam Jit, cr angujiis hunc addere rebus honorem f

Geor". iii.

Seeing, as the Orator does himself express it, Nihil est homine li-inagdserantbero dignius ; there is nothing more becoming and worthy of ass sssGentleman, no, not the Majesty of a * Consul. In ant wit and bestsjj^ ^Times, Men were not honour'd and esteem'd for the only Learned, consuie dig-who were great Linguists, profound Criticks, Readers and Devou-jj' t f t et ssfrers of Books ; but such whose Studies consisted of the Dis .

courses, Documents and Observations of their Fore-Fathers, an- c .i. poet.tient and venerable Persons ; who (as the excellent Author of theRites of the Israelites, Cap. xv, &c. acquaints us ) were obliged'^ Liptfumto instruct and inform their Children of the wonderful Things A rtna i. i7 .God had done for their Ancestors ; together with the ‘Preceptsof the Moral Law, Feasts, and Religious Ceremonies: But taughtfia.them likewise all that concerned Agriculture, joined with Lessonsof perpetual Trait ice, in which they were, doubt le fe, exceedinglyknowing ; whilst during fe many Ages, they employed themselvesalmost continually in it: And though now a-days this Noble Artbe for the most part left to be exercised amongst us by Teople ofgrosser and unthinking Souls ; yet there is no Science whatever

which