PREFATORY NOTE. 



THE writer of this little book has found 

 so much pleasure in other men's woods and 

 fields that he has come to look upon him- 

 self as in some sort the owner of them. 

 Their lawful possessors will not begrudge 

 him this feeling, he believes, nor take it 

 amiss if he assumes, even in this public 

 way, to hold a rambler's lease of their prop- 

 erty. Should it please them to do so, 

 they may accept the papers herein con- 

 tained as a kind of return, the best he 

 knows how to offer, for the many favors, 

 alike unproffered and unasked, which he 

 has received at their hands. His private 

 opinion is that the world belongs to those 

 who enjoy it ; and taking this view of the 



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