From the time I am writing this [1 March 1555] before 177 years, 3 months and 11 days, by pestilence, long famine, and wars, and more still by inundations, the world between this day and that, before and after,
shall be diminished, and its population so reduced that there
will hardly be hands enough to attend to agriculture,
and the lands will be left as long without culture as they
have been under tillage.