1It is not in your nature to demand these customary and, as it were, public courtesies from close friends against their own interest, and I love you too steadfastly to fear that you will take it otherwise than I would wish if I do not see you consul right on the Kalends, especially as I am detained by the need to let my farms, a matter that will settle things for several years, and in which I must adopt new plans. 2For during the last five-year period, although after large reductions, the arrears have grown: as a result most of the tenants no longer take any care to reduce their debt, since they despair of ever paying it off; 2they even seize and consume what has been produced, as men who think they are no longer saving it for themselves.
3So the growing evils must be met and remedied. 3There is one way of remedying them: if I let the farms not for money but for shares of the crop, and then appoint some of my own people as overseers of the work and guardians of the produce. 3And besides, no kind of income is more just than what the earth, the weather and the season bring in. 4But this demands great honesty, sharp eyes and many hands. 4Still, it must be tried, and, as with a chronic illness, any remedy that a change offers must be attempted. 5You see how far from frivolous is the reason that does not allow me to attend the first day of your consulship; 5which, however, I shall celebrate here too as if I were present, with prayers, joy and congratulation.
5Farewell.