106 FAVOURITE FABLES.

FABLE LXXVI.
THE HUSBANDMAN AND HIS SONS.

A certain Husbandman, lying at the point of death, and
being desirous his sons should pursue that innocent, enter-
taining course of agriculture in which he himself had been
engaged all his life, made use of this expedient to induce
them to it. He called them to his bed-side and spoke to this
effect: ‘‘ All the patrimony I have to bequeath you, Sons, is
my farm and my vineyard, of which I make you joint heirs.
But I charge you not to let it go out of your own occupation ;
for if I have any treasure besides, it lies buried somewhere in
the ground, within a foot of the surface.”’

This made the Sons conclude that he talked of money
which he had hid there; so, after their father’s death, with
unwearied diligence and application, they carefully dug up
every inch, both of the farm and vineyard; from which it
came to pass that, though they missed the treasure which
they expected, the ground, by being so well stirred and
loosened, produced so plentiful a crop of all that was sowed
in it as proved a real, and no inconsiderable treasure.