A father, being on the point of death, wished to be sure that his sons would give the same attention to his farm as he himself had given it. He called them to his bedside and said: “My sons, there is a great treasure hid in one of my vineyards.” The sons, after his death, took their spades and mattocks and carefully dug every portion of their land. They found no treasure, but the vines repaid their labor by an extraordinary and superabundant crop.

From Aesop’s Fables, translated by George Fyler Townsend, Collins Classics, London: Harper Press, 2011, p. 81.

Addendum (November 7, 2014)

To tell the truth, my children came to my mind as soon as I read this fable. My magnum opus is my own farm. And I have given it much attention over the years. But will my two sons and one daughter find any treasure in it? And how would they dig for it? Hard to tell, to be sure. My No. 1 son has been most helpful when it comes to my website on the World Wide Web, and I hope he will keep it up after my death. My No. 2 son is much younger, and my daughter trails him by a few years. Having been estranged after the breakup of my second marriage, they are not very likely to pay much attention to the website and the wisdom hidden in it. Given their mother’s family fortune, they may help prop it up financially, but that is about all I would expect from them. Would that I left them vineyards rather than so many words, no matter how wise.