I remember, five years ago, looking forward with the most
delighted expectation to this very hour, and as each year has passed,
the expectation has gone on increasing. I do the same now. I
anticipate what this plantation and that one will presently be, if
only taken care of, and there is not a spot of which I do not watch
the progress. Unlike building, or even painting, or indeed any other
kind of pursuit, this has no end, and is never interrupted; but goes
on from day to day, and from year to year, with a perpetually
augmenting interest. Farming I hate. What have I to do with fattening
and killing beasts, or raising corn, only to cut it down, and to
wrangle with farmers about prices, and to be constantly at the mercy
of the seasons? There can be no such disappointments or annoyances in
planting trees."[43] Scott indeed regarded planting as a mode of so
moulding the form and colour of the outward world, that nature herself
became indebted to him for finer outlines, richer masses of colour,
and deeper shadows, as well as for more fertile and sheltered soils.
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