Listen closely, Tornik, because I want you to understand this. Everything the people of this world eat, their very life, comes from working the land. Our wide natural land feeds us like a mother, with crops of every kind. The earth does bear fruit on its own, as Jesus said,1 but man has to be the earth's fellow worker. The Lord God, by His bountiful work of creation, prepared seeds of every kind ahead of time, but man has his own great share of the labor. He has to plow, sow, water, and see to whatever tending is needed, so that he can reap, thresh, and gather into the granary, and afterward enjoy the fruit of his labor. So, Tornik, man's labor has to be joined to Mother Earth's own fruitfulness. But you should know something else too. The earth's own yielding and our labor can still bring nothing forth unless the bountiful will of the heavenly Father makes the sun rise over this world with its all-pervading light, and gives the clouds their order to rain on the mountains, on the plains, and on the fields we have sown. Sometimes you see it. We are the sort who remember God best when we are in trouble, and the people, with fervent and broken hearts, raise a cry toward heaven. God, send rain, rain! And the merciful God, hearing the people's voice, pours down the rain of His good will out of the clouds of heaven.
Do you see what I mean, Tornik? Heaven's sun and rain, the earth's own yielding, and our labor all join together to make ready the food that keeps the whole world's people alive, and men enjoy it and eat their fill, some more, some less. Think of the bread from the wheat we grow, the meat of the animals we raise, the fresh butter, the ghee, and the cheese, the greens we tend, the honey of our hives, the grapes and the wine of the vineyards we plant, the fine fruit we bring on from the saplings we set with our own hands. All of it goes up as far as the king's table and dresses it with a splendor fit for a king. The rulers of the world's states and all the city-dwelling peoples enjoy it, each according to his rank and his means. And of course we too, in our own measure, enjoy the fruit of the labor of our sweat.
Set bread aside, and everything else the village people prepare for men's life and food. That is not all. Look how the same laboring people make the covering for man's nakedness, which the Lord God covered only once, with a fig leaf.2 Now let me count out for you, Tornik, all the raw materials that the man who works the earth raises by his labor and hands over to the craftsman. We grow the cotton and give it to the weaver, and he makes shirts for the people. And the tailor, what a variety of flower-patterned calicoes he turns out, filling the merchants' houses of the world and the shops of the bazaars!
We plant the mulberry, and we raise that wonderful thing, the silkworm's cocoon, which passes through the merchants' hands into the hands of the silk-weaving craftsman. He makes marvelous cloth from it, and the queens of this world and the palace folk show themselves off in it like peacocks. In the old days robes of luxury like those were an honor kept for royal houses and princesses alone. But now the families of the common people dress themselves in the same purple-gleaming robes.
So much for the silkworm. And who grows the precious flax? From its seed we press the oil that lights our lamps, and sometimes make a pilaf with the oil, which is far more wholesome than the oil of the olive. And from the flax's stalk the craftsman's hand makes the finest linen, whiter than snow, one shirt's-length of which is worth a whole gold piece. But beyond linen and cotton and silk there are still other plant materials, and they are not for clothing only. From them the clever craftsman makes paper in endless quantity, for all the writers of the world and for printing. Never mind the grasses. Paper is made even out of the wood shavings that we count worthless and burn.
But enough about food and clothing, Tornik, and all the rest that the village people's labor makes ready. Who plants the trees of the forest? Who makes ready timber beyond counting and beyond number for the houses of the world's people, and that is only on the dry land, never mind the timber for the ships that go on the sea? In the beginning, true enough, the Lord God had clothed the mountains and plains of this world of ours with self-sown forests. But the people who live on the earth have cut them down, and by now those everlasting forests of the old ages are used up. After that came forestry, an important branch of agriculture. And do you know how many new forests they raise now, by planting and tending? How I wish you had the luck, Tornik, to go to Europe and see those beautiful cedars, and the other forests of every sort, each set apart, old-planted and new-planted, which the forest-keeping laborer tends and guards. He knows how to cut the old in due season and order, and to set the new young sapling, or to sow the forest seed. And he tends it with such skill that in a few years those little seeds become great trees and cover the face of the ground. Under their shade the working laborer rests and draws a sweet untroubled sleep, and the sweet-voiced nightingales of the forest sing a lullaby over the weary laborer.
From this much alone, quick-learning Tornik, I think you can see how great and how necessary the fruits of farming are, which the laboring people supply to the city people of this world. And the city people, who receive all that enjoyment, provide in their turn for the village people's most pressing needs. So a fair exchange goes on between the two sides, and through it the peoples of this world, set apart one from another, order their lives well, the villager in the village and the townsman in the city.