Prosperity of Germany Part 1

to perish so miserably, but rather we should
have labored, like industrious ants, to
diligently store and guard all that superfluity
which we are not permitted to enjoy. Consider,
I ask, into what great heaps the grain lies
piled and rotting. Has the same not happened
to wine, which, having been collected too
abundantly, is now cheap and despised?
Could not great treasures for future
calamitous years have been collected from this
very abundance which is now perishing?

Although this has not been done hitherto,
yet I trust that good fathers of families will be
found who, not setting aside my admonition
and teaching, will condense the superfluity of
wine and grain and preserve it against the
scarcity of future years. I also do not doubt
that others, after they have learned the method
through the benefit of this little book, will
change the superfluous and rejected wood,
which is being reduced to nothing by dampness
and rot, into a great abundance of saltpeter,
so that with its aid, enemies may be resisted,
and the inhabitants defended. In the
following three parts, however, concerning