arch, 1829. I walk between burning
ploughshares; let me be mindful where I place my foot.

FROM THE MEMOIRS

JUNE 7TH, 1833.--The first seedling apple-tree that I had observed on my
return here just out of the ground was on the 22d of April. It had grown
slowly but constantly since, and had put out five or six leaves. Last
evening, after my return from Boston, I saw it perfectly sound. This
morning I found it broken off, leaving one lobe of the seed-leaves, and
one leaf over it. This may have been the work of a bug, or perhaps of a
caterpillar. It would not be imaginable to any person free from
hobby-horse or fanciful attachments, how much mortification such an
incident occasions. St. Evremond, after removing into the country,
returned to a city life because he found himself in despair for the loss
of a pigeon. His conclusion was, that rural life induced exorbitant
attachment to insignificant objects. My experience is conformable to
this. My natural propensity was to raise trees, fruit and forest, from
the seed. I had it in early youth, but the course of my life deprived me
of the means of pursuing the bent of my inclination. One
shellbark-walnut-tree in my garden, the root of which I planted 8th
October, 1804, and one Mazzard cherry-tree in the grounds north of the
house, the stone of which I planted about the same time, are the only
remains of my experiments of so ancient a date. Had my life been spent
in the country, and my experiments commenced while I was at College, I
should now have a large fruit garden, flourishing orchards of native
fruit, and very valuable forests; instead of which I have a nursery of
about half an acre of ground, half full of seedlings, from five years to
five days old, bearing for the first time perhaps twenty peaches, and a
few blossoms of apricots and cherries; and hundreds of seedlings of the
present year perishing from day to day before my eyes.

FROM THE MEMOIRS

SEPTEMBER 9TH, 1833.--Cold and cloudy day, clearing off toward evening.
In the multitudinous whimseys of a disabled mind and body, the
thick-coming fancies often come to me that the events which affect my
life and adventures are specially shaped to disappoint my purposes. My
whole life has been a succession of disappointments. I can scarcely
recollect a single instance of success to anything that I ever
undertook. Yet, with fervent gratitude to God, I confess that my life
has been equally marked by great and signal succ