THE SEARCH AND FINDING. 19 



gentlemen of character would be permitted to pur- 

 chase, and where the refinements of city intercourse 

 would be, &c., &c. 



Now it so happens that I never heard of a park upon 

 this mutual method, where there did not arise within 

 a few years a smart quarrel between two or more of 

 the refined occupants. The cows, or the goats, or the 

 adjustment of water privileges, are sure to form the 

 bases of noisy differences, in the management of 

 which, I am sorry to say, the amenities of the town 

 are not greatly superior to the amenities of the coun- 

 try. Aside from this danger, I have not much faith 

 in the marketable coherence of those rural tastes 

 which would belong to a promiscuous circle of buy- 

 ers. A community of cooks, or of coal-heavers, I can 

 conceive of, but a community of ruralists, or of ama- 

 teur farmers, quite passes my comprehension. I say 

 amateur farming, for I know of no farming which is 

 so amatory in the beginning, and so damnatory in the 

 end, as that which delights in a suburban house, and 

 in a sufficient quantity of ground a few miles away, 

 where, under the wary eye of some sagacious Dutch- 

 man or Irishman, the cows are to be fed, the weeds 

 pulled, the chickens plucked, and the new industry 

 and profit developed generally. It is veiy much as 

 if a man were to enter upon the business of whaling 

 by taking rooms at the Pequod House, and negotiat- 



