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 his cellar, his stable, and his field; and then, on the condition that the box was not opened till the year’s end, the sage promised wealth to the farmer. The husband-man obeyed implicitly: in the kitchen he found the cook wasting the meat, in the cellar the vats leaking, in the fields the labourers idling, in the garden the vegetables unhoed. All these disorders were rectified, and by the year’s end the man’s fortune was doubled. Then he opened the casket, and found in it a slip of paper, on which was written:

Which, Faber adds, is like the German saying, The best soil for a field is that in the farmer’s shoe.