Note 15 — Chapter VII · LANDSCAPE OBSERVATIONS FROM EUROPEAN TRAVEL

In regard to the preparations for his trip, Mr. Olmsted wrote in the Preface of his Walks and Talks: “With a hearty country appetite for narrative, I have spent, previous to my own journey, a great many long winter evenings in reading the books so frequently written by our literary tourists, upon England; and although I do not recollect one of them, the author of which was a farmer, or whose habits of life, professional interests, associations in society, and ordinary standards of comparison were not altogether different from my own, I remember none from which I did not derive entertainment and instruction.”