4 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



By 1873 Burroughs had had enough of the routine 

 of a Government clerkship, and he resigned to become 

 the receiver of a bank in Middletown, New York. 

 Later he accepted a position as bank examiner in the 

 eastern part of the State. But his longing to return to 

 the soil was growing apace, and presently he bought a 

 little farm on the west shore of the Hudson. He at once 

 erected a substantial stone house and started orchards 

 and vineyards, yet it was not until 1885 that he felt he 

 could relinquish his Government position and dwell 

 on his own land with the assurance of a safe support. 



He has never been a great traveler. Still, he has 

 been abroad twice and has recently made a trip to 

 Alaska. Lesser excursions have taken him to Virginia 

 and Kentucky, and to Canada, and he has camped in 

 Maine and the Adirondacks. But the district that he 

 knows best and that he puts oftenest into his nature 

 studies is his home country in the Catskills and the 

 region about his "Riverby" farm. Very little of his 

 writing, however, has been done in the house in which 

 he lives. This was never a wholly satisfactory working 

 place. He felt he must get away from all conventional- 

 ities, and he early put up on the outskirts of his vine- 

 yards a little bark-covered study, to which it has been 

 his habit to retire for his indoor thinking and writing. 

 He still uses this study more or less, and often in the 

 summer evenings sits in an easy chair, under an apple- 

 tree just outside the door, and listens to the voices of 

 Nature while he looks off across the Hudson. 



But the spot that at present most engages his affec- 

 tion is a reclaimed woodland swamp, back among 

 some rocky hills, a mile or two from the river. A few 

 years ago the swamp was a wild tangle of brush and 



