<P> The Farmer and his Sons is a story of Greek origin that is included among Aesop's Fables and is listed as 42 in the Perry Index . It illustrates both the value of hard work and the need to temper parental advice with practicality . </P> <P> A farmer nearing death calls his sons to him in secret and tells them not to divide the family land since there is a treasure hidden somewhere on it . Although they dig it over carefully, they find nothing . However, when the crops (or in some versions the vines) flourish profitably, they realise the valuable hidden meaning of his advice . </P> <P> The fable is rare in dealing directly with the human situation, rather than through the intermediary of animals . Although it has long been accepted as one of Aesop's, and appeared as his in early European collections, the story has also been ascribed to the philosopher Socrates . The Neo-Latin poets Gabriele Faerno and Hieronymus Osius both wrote poetic versions, as did Jean de la Fontaine in French . </P> <P> There is no consistency of titling . Greek sources make the father a farmer (Γεωργὸς), while Osius calls him a peasant (rusticus). Caxton's description is labourer, as is La Fontaine's, although the French laboureur has the meaning of an independent husbandman, the term used by Samuel Croxall . The nature of the ground cultivated differs as well . The 15th century illustrations in the Medici Manuscript and in Heinrich Steinhowel's collection make it a vineyard, as it is also described in the poems by Faerno and Osius, but other versions are not always so specific . </P>

Author of the farmer and his lazy sons
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