90 
WALDEN. 
retained the landscape, and I have since annually car¬ 
ried off what it yielded without a wheelbarrow. With 
respect to landscapes, — 
“ I am monarch of all I survey , 
My right there is none to dispute.” 
I have frequently seen a poet withdraw, having en¬ 
joyed the most valuable part of a farm, while the crusty 
farmer supposed that he had got a few wild apples only. 
Why, the owner does not know it for many years when 
a poet has put his farm in rhyme, the most admirable 
kind of invisible fence, has fairly impounded it, milked 
it, skimmed it, and got all the cream, and left the farmer 
only the skimmed milk. 
The real attractions of the Hollowell farm, to me, 
were; its complete retirement, being about two miles 
from the village, half a mile from the nearest neighbor, 
and separated from the highway by a broad field; its 
bounding on the river, which the owner said protected 
it by its fogs from frosts in the spring, though that was 
nothing to me; the gray color and ruinous state of the 
house and barn, and the dilapidated fences, which put 
such an interval between me and the last occupant; the 
hollow and lichen-covered apple trees, gnawed by rab¬ 
bits, showing what kind of neighbors I should have; 
but above all, the recollection I had of it from my ear¬ 
liest voyages up the river, when the house was concealed 
behind a dense grove of red maples, through which I 
heard the house-dog bark. I was in haste to buy it, 
before the proprietor finished getting out some rocks, 
cutting down the hollow apple trees, and grubbing up 
some young birches which had sprung up in the pasture, 
or, in short, had made any more of his improvements. 
