A True Recipe

tify the believers, and to justly condemn the infidels. Following which, it is to be concluded that the perverse and iniquitous, the simoniacs, the avaricious, and every species of wicked people will always be ready to persecute those who, by direct lines, will wish to follow the statutes and ordinances of our Lord.

As to the first point, I grant it to you, but as for what you say, that a mountainous place is required to build gardens, I cannot agree to this.

Praise of agriculture.

I know that every accustomed folly is taken as if by a law and virtue; but I do not stop at that, and I do not wish in any way to be an imitator of my predecessors in spiritual and temporal things, except in what they have done well according to the ordinance of God. I see such great abuses and ignorances in all the arts, that it seems that all order is for the most part perverted, and that everyone labors the earth without any Philosophy, and they always go the accustomed trot, following the trace of their predecessors, without considering the natures, nor the principal causes of agriculture.

At this, you make me more astonished at your words than I have ever been. It seems, to hear you speak, that some Philosophy is required for laborers, a thing that I find strange.

I tell you that there is no art in the world in which a greater Philosophy is required than in agriculture, and I tell you that if agriculture is conducted without Philosophy, it is tantamount to daily violating the earth and the things that it produces; and I marvel that the earth and the natures produced therein do not cry for vengeance against certain murderous, ignorant, and ungrateful people, who daily do nothing but spoil and dissipate the trees and plants without any consideration. I dare also tell you that if the earth were cultivated as it should be, a single day-laborer's plot would produce more fruit than two do in the manner that it is cultivated daily. Do you not remember having read a story that it