On the Tilling of the Earth by Noah (1-5)

But Moses, through the exceeding abundance of his knowledge of all things, was accustomed to affix the most felicitous and expressive appellations to them. Accordingly, in many passages of the law, we shall find this opinion, which we have expressed, confirmed by the fact, and not least in the passage which we have cited at the beginning of this treatise, in which the just Noah is represented as [*]

For what man is there who is at all hasty in forming an opinion, who would not think that the being a husbandman (γεωργία), and the occupying one’s self in cultivating the ground (γη̃ς ἐργασία), were the same thing? And yet in real truth, not only are these things not the same, but they are even very much separated from one another, so as to be opposed to, and at variance with one another.

For a man without any skill may labour at taking care of the land; but if a man is called a husbandman, he, from his mere name, is believed to be no unskilful man, but a farmer of experience, inasmuch as his name (γεωργός) has been derived from agricultural skill (γεωργικὴ τέχνη), of which he is the namesake.

And besides all this, we must likewise consider this other point, that the tiller of the ground (ὁ γη̃ς ἐγάτης) looks only to one end, namely, to his wages; for he is altogether a hireling, and has no care whatever to till the land well. But the husbandman (ὁ γεωγὸς) would be glad also to contribute something of his own, and to spend in addition some of his private resources for the sake of improving the soil, and of avoiding blame from those who understand the business; for his desire is to derive his revenues every year not from any other source, but from his agricultural labours, when they have been brought into a productive state.