< Page:Essays of Francis Bacon 1908 Scott.djvu
This page has been validated.

156

BACON'S ESSAYS

[1]maize, and the like. For wheat, barley, and oats, they ask too much labour; but with pease[2] and beans you may begin, both because they ask less labour, and because they serve for meat as well as for bread. And of rice likewise cometh a great increase, and it is a kind of meat. Above all there ought to be brought store of biscuit, oat-meal, flour, meal, and the like, in the beginning, till bread may be had. For beasts, or birds, take chiefly such as are least subject to diseases, and multiply fastest; as swine, goats, cocks, hens, turkeys, geese, house-doves,[3] and the like. The victual in plantations ought to be expended almost as in a besieged town; that is, with certain allowance. And let the main part of the ground employed[4] to gardens or corn,[5] be to[6] a common stock; and to be laid in, and stored up, and then delivered out in proportion; besides some spots of ground that any particular person will manure for his own private.[7] Consider likewise what commodities the soil where the plantation is

  1. ↑ distributed from the Parnese garden, in Rome. There it was called girasole articiocco, which means 'sunflower artichoke.' 'Jerusalem' is an English corruption of girasole ('turning with the sun').
  2. ↑ Pease. Archaic plural from the Middle English singular 'pesë.' When the final e of 'pese' disappeared, the s of 'pes' (pease) was supposed to be the plural ending, and then the singular 'pe' (pea) was made to suit it. The singular 'pea' is a case of an error in English that has established itself in good usage.
  3. ↑ House-dove. A dove kept in a dove-house.
  4. ↑ Employ. To apply (a thing) to some definite purpose; followed by the prepositions for, in, on, and to. Archaic.
  5. ↑ Corn. Grain.
  6. ↑ To. For. "His house is not quite a mile from this place; and if he should not be at home himself, he hath a pretty young man to his son, whose name is Civility." John Bunyan. The Pilgrim's Progress. III.
  7. ↑ Private. Personal interest or use; particular business. "My lords, this strikes at every Roman's private." Ben Jonson. Sejanus his Fall. iii. 1.
This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.