PREFACE. 



IT has probably been with many others as it 

 is with the writer of this, who finds the little 

 which he has to say by way of Preface, more 

 disagreeable, and more difficult, than he has found 

 any other part of his book. A Preface, however, 

 of some sort or other, must be written. 



The writer cannot say, as some have done, 

 that he has pushed off his bark, and is content 

 to leave it to its fate he does not pretend, with 

 Kent, the author of " Hints to Gentlemen of Land- 

 ed Property," that " these hints are published 

 from no motives of interest whatever" on the 

 contrary he is ready to avow, that, while he would 



