PREFACE.

Can such things be pleasing to God? Does it not happen frequently that a huge abundance of some thing is soon followed by the greatest need? Who will be the sponsor that this cannot happen to us in a short space of time? It is therefore most just that we do not allow such opulent gifts of our kind Creator to be corrupted so uselessly, but that we preserve and protect them properly. Unless we do this, God will do what will bring us not joy, but sorrow.

But so that, as much as it is possible, it may be prevented that grain and wine perish from neglect and instead be guarded against the future dearness of grain, I have brought forth to everyone's view and perfectly manifested this little book on the concentration of vegetables, animals, minerals, and metals, in which the prosperity and happiness of all Germany and the treasure and opulence of the entire universal world are situated. For what region of Europe, or rather of the entire world, has been gifted by God with a greater and more plentiful blessing of wine, grain, minerals, and metals than Germany? But since such a prolix opulence of all these things breeds nausea and disgust, I deemed it worth the effort to constrain the abundance of such minerals, metals, wine, and grain, in which Germany excels the other Regions of Europe, into narrow limits and to rescue them from the loss and destruction of negligence and contempt. For when things