על עבודת האדמה ב׳On Husbandry 2
א׳
1[8] First, then, it makes it its aim to sow or plant nothing that has no produce, but all that is fitted for cultivation and fruit-bearing, and likely to yield yearly tributes to man, its prince; for him did nature appoint to be ruler of all trees as well as of the living creatures besides himself that are mortal.
ב׳
2[9] But who else could the man that is in each of us be save the mind, whose place it is to reap the benefits derived from all that has been sown or planted? But seeing that for babes milk is food, but for grown men wheaten bread, there must also be soul-nourishment, such as is milk-like suited to the time of childhood, in the shape of the preliminary stages of school-learning, and such as is adapted to grown men in the shape of instructions leading the way through wisdom and temperance and all virtue. For these when sown and planted in the mind will produce most beneficial fruits, namely fair and praiseworthy conduct.
ג׳
3[10] By means of this husbandry whatever trees of passions or vices have sprung up and grown tall, bearing mischief-dealing fruits, are cut down and cleared away, no minute portion even being allowed to survive, as the germ of new growths of sins to spring up later on.
ד׳
4[11] And should there be any trees capable of bearing neither wholesome nor harmful fruits, these it will cut down indeed, but not allow them to be made away with, but assign them to a use for which they are suited, setting them as pales and stakes to surround an encampment or to fence in a city in place of a wall.