though they bear no fruit, are yet useful, such as selling of timber
and the whole art of metallurgy, which includes many different
species, for there are various sorts of things dug out of the earth.

These we have now mentioned in general, but to enter into particulars
concerning each of them, though it might be useful to the artist,
would be tiresome to dwell on. Now of all the works of art, those are
the most excellent wherein chance has the least to do, and those are
the meanest which deprave the body, those the most servile in which
bodily strength alone is chiefly wanted, those most illiberal which
require least skill; but as there are books written on these subjects
by some persons, as by Chares the Panian, and Apollodorus the Lemnian,
upon husbandry and planting; and by others on other matters, [1259b]
let those who have occasion consult them thereon; besides, every
person should collect together whatsoever he hears occasionally
mentioned, by means of which many of those who aimed at making a
fortune have succeeded in their intentions; for all these are useful
to those who make a point of getting money, as in the contrivance of
Thales the Milesian (which was certainly a gainful one, but as it was
his it was attributed to his wisdom, though the method he used was a
general one, and would universally succeed), when they reviled him for
his poverty, as if the study of philosophy was useless: for they say
that he, perceiving by his skill in astrology that there would be
great plenty of olives that year, while it was yet winter, having got
a little money, he gave earnest for all the oil works that were in
Miletus and Chios, which he hired at a low price, there being no one
to bid against him; but when the season came for making oil, many
persons wanting them, he all at once let them upon what terms he
pleased; and raising a large sum of money by that means, convinced
them that it was easy for philosophers to be rich if they chose it,