BOOK ONE

...were born; just as fish were born to wander the waters, nature gave the earth to other living creatures so that they might live in it, and to man furthermore that he might cultivate it, and draw forth from its caverns metals and other fossilsoriginal: "fossilia"; in the 16th century, this term referred to anything "dug up" from the earth, including minerals, stones, and ores, not just prehistoric remains.. Again, these same critics say that we eat fish, but with fossils neither hunger nor thirst is driven away, nor are they useful for clothing the body: which is the second argument by which they strive to proveoriginal: "contendūnt"; the "n" is indicated by a macron that metals ought not to be dug up. Truly, man without metals cannot prepare those things which provide for food and clothing. Indeed, since agriculture provides the greatest abundance of food for our bodies, first, no labor is finished and perfected without tools; since the earth is tilled with plowshares and share-beams, broken stumps and deep roots are dug out with mattocks, scattered seed is harrowed, the crop is hoed and weeded; the mature grain is mown with sickles along with part of the stalk, threshed on the floor, or its cut ears are stored in the granary, and afterwards beaten with threshing-sledges, and cleaned with winnowing-fans; finally the pure grains and legumes are brought into the granary, from which they are brought out again when the situation requires or necessity demands. Now, to obtain better and more abundant fruits from trees and shrubs, we have need of trenching, pruning, and grafting, which again cannot be done without tools, just as we cannot collect and contain liquids—I mean milk, honey, wine, oil—without vessels; nor can we protect so many kinds of animals from long rain and intolerable cold without stables. Most agricultural tools are made of iron, such as the plowshare, share-beam, mattock, the teeth of the harrow, the hoe, the plane, the hay-scythe, the straw-sickle, the pruning-hook for trees, the vine-knife, the shovel, the small knife, forks, and small baskets; but the vessels are indeed made of copper or lead. But neither wooden tools nor vessels are manufactured without iron; nor could the wine-cellar, nor the oil-cellar, nor the stable, nor any other part of the farmhouse be built without iron tools. Next, whether the bull, the wether, the kid, and other animals of the same kind are led from the pastures to the slaughterhouse, or whether the poultryman hands over a chick, a hen, or a capon from the farmstead to the cook—can animals be cut and divided without axes or knives? To say nothing here of copper kettles and bronze cooking pots, because for cooking meat earthenware vessels serve the same purpose; yet even these cannot be shaped and formed by the potter without tools, just as no tools can be made from wood without iron. Since, moreover, hunting, fowling, and fishing provide food for man, does not the hunter pierce the ensnared deer with a spear? Does he not transfix it standing or running with an arrow, or strike it with a bullet from a handgunoriginal: "bombardæ"; while this later meant heavy artillery, here Agricola refers to early portable firearms like the arquebus.? Does not the fowler likewise kill the grouse or the pheasant with the shot of an arrow? Or send a bullet from a handgun into its body? To say nothing of traps and other instruments with which the woodcock and the woodpecker and other forest birds are caught, lest I now unseasonably pursue each species one by one. Finally, does not the fisherman catch fish with a hook and a drag-net in the sea, in maritime preserves, in ponds, and in rivers? But the hook is of iron, and from the drag-net we sometimes see lead or iron weights hanging; moreover, most caught fish are soon cut into pieces or gutted with knives and axes. But enough and more than enough has been said of food: now I will speak of clothing, which is made from wool, linen, feathers, hair, skins, and leather. Truly, sheep are first shorn, then the wool is combed; then the threads are drawn, and afterwards the warp is suspended...