To the Reader, Greetings.

FRIEND Reader, since it has pleased God that this writing has fallen into your hands, I pray you, do not be so lazy or rash as to content yourself with reading the beginning or a part of it. Rather, in order to gain some fruit from it, take the trouble to read the whole thing, without having regard to the smallness and abject condition of the author, nor to his rustic and unpolished language. I assure you that you will find nothing in this writing that does not profit you, whether a little or a lot. The things that at the beginning will seem impossible, you will find in the end to be true and easy to believe. Above all things, I pray you to remember a passage that is in the Holy Scripture, where Saint Paul says that everyone, according to the gifts he has received, should distribute them to others. Following this, I pray you to instruct the laborers who are not literate, so that they may carefully study natural philosophy following my advice, and particularly that this secret and teaching of manures that I have put into this book be divulged and manifested to them, until they hold it in as great esteem as the thing deserves. As it is, no man could estimate how great the profit will be in France if they are willing to believe my advice in this area. There is in certain parts of Gascony, and some other regions of France, a type of earth that one calls Merle a type of marl or calcareous clay, with which the laborers manure their fields, and they say it is worth more than manure. They also say that when a field is manured with said earth, it will be enough for ten years. If I see that my writings are not scorned and that they are put into execution, I will take the trouble to search for said Merle in this region of Saintonge, and I will make a third book, by which I will teach all people to know said Merle, and even the manner of applying it to the fields according to the method of those who use it ordinarily. I know that my haters will not want to approve my work, nor will the malicious and ignorant, for they are enemies of all virtue. But to be justified from their calumnies, envies, and detractions, I will call to witness all the most gentle spirits of France, philosophers, people who live well,