. Shakespeare:

The mellow plum doth fall, the green sticks fast, Or being early pluck'd
is sour to taste ("V. and A." 527).

XX

At this point in the conversation I remarked: Tell me, Ischomachus,
if the details of the art of husbandry are thus easy to learn, and all
alike know what needs to be done, how does it happen that all farmers
do not fare like, but some live in affluence owning more than they
can possibly enjoy, while others of them fail to obtain the barest
necessities and actually run into debt?

I will tell you, Socrates (Ischomachus replied). It is neither knowledge
nor lack of knowledge in these husbandmen which causes some to be well
off, while others are in difficulties; nor will you ever hear such tales
afloat as that this or that estate has gone to ruin because the sower
failed to sow evenly, or that the planter failed to plant straight rows
of plants, or that such an one, [1] being ignorant what soil was best
suited to bear vines, had set his plants in sterile ground, or that
another [2] was in ignorance that fallow must be broken up for purposes
of sowing, or that a third [3] was not aware that it is good to mix
manure in with the soil. No, you are much more likely to hear said of
So-and-so: No wonder the man gets in no wheat from his farm, when he
takes no pains to have it sown or properly manured. Or of some other
that he grows no wine: Of course not, when he takes no pains either to
plant new vines or to make those he has bear fruit. A third has neither
figs nor olives; and again the self-same reason: He too is careless, and
takes no steps whatever to succeed in growing either one or other. These
are the distinctions which make all the difference to prosperity in
farming, far more than the reputed discovery of any clever agricultural
method or machine. [4]

[1] "Squire This."

[2] "Squire That."

[3] "Squire T'other."

[4] There is something amiss with the text at this point. For
emendations see Breit., Schenkl, Holden, Hartman.

You will find the principle applies elsewhere. There are points of
strategic conduct in which generals differ from each other for the
better or the worse, not because they differ in respect of wit or
judgment, but of carefulness undoubtedly. I speak of things within the
cognisance of every general, and indeed of almost every private soldier,
which some commanders are careful to perform and others not. Who does
not know, for instance, that in march