"Of the profits" [of a garden] he says, "First for household occasions, for there is not a day passeth over our heads but we have of one thing or other that groweth within their circumference. We cannot make so much as a little good Pottage without Herbes, which give an admirable relish and make them wholsome for our Bodies.... Besides this inestimable Profit there is another not much inferior to it, and that is the wholsome exercise a man may use in it.... If Gentlemen which have little else to doe, would be ruled by me, I would advise them to spend their spare time in their gardens, either in digging, setting, weeding or the like, then which there is no better way in the world to preserve health. If a man want an Appetite to his Victuals the Smell of the Earth new turned up by digging with a spade will procure it,[125] and if he be inclined to a Consumption it will recover him. "Gentlewomen if the ground be not too wet may doe themselves much good by kneeling upon a Cushion and weeding. And thus both sexes might divert themselves from Idlenesse and evill company, which oftentimes prove the ruine of many ingenious people. But perhaps they may think it a disparagement to the condition they are in; truly none at all if it were but put in practise. For we see that those fashions which sometimes seem ridiculous if once taken up by the gentry cease to be so." He quotes the Emperor Diocletian, who "left for a season the whole Government of the Empire and forsaking the Court betook himself to a meane House with a Garden adjoyning, wherein with his owne hands, he both sowed set and weeded the Herbes of his Garden which kinde of life so pleased him, that he was hardly intreated to resume the Government of the Empire." "By this time," he concludes, "I hope you will think it no dishonour to follow the steps of our grandsire Adam, who is commonly pictured with a Spade in his hand, to march through the Quarters of your Garden with the like Instrument, and there to rectify all the disorders thereof, to procure as much as in you lyes the recovery of the languishing Art of Simpling, which did it but appeare in lively colours, I am almost perswaded it would so affect you that you would be much taken with it. There is no better way to understand the benefit of it, than by being acquainted with Herballs and Herbarists and by putting this Gentle and ingenious Exercise in practise, that so this part of knowledge as well as others, may receive that esteem and advancement that is due to it, to the banishment of Barbarisme and Ignorance which begin again to prevaile against it."