The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson - by R.W. Emerson Institute, Jim Manley, Director - RWE.org

      The Teutonic race have been marked in all ages by a trait which has received the name of Earth-hunger, a love of possessing land. It is nor less visible in that branch of the family which inhabits America. Nor is it confined to farmers, speculators, and filibusters, or conquerors. The land, the care of land, seems to be the calling of the people of this new country, of those, at least, who have not some decided bias, driving them to a particular craft, as a born sailor or machinist. The capable and generous, let them spend their talent on the land. Plant it, adorn it, study it, it will develop in the cultivator the talent it requires.
     The avarice of real estate native to us all covers instincts of great generosity, namely, all that is called the love of Nature, comprising the largest use and the whole beauty of a farm or landed estate. Travel and walking have this apology, that Nature has impressed on savage men periodical or secular impulses to emigrate, as upon lemmings, rats and birds. The Indians go in summer to the coast, for fishing ; in winter, to the woods. The nomads wander over vast territory, to find their pasture. Other impulses hold us to other habits. As the increasing population finds new values in the ground, the nomad life is given up for settled homes. But the necessity of exercise and the nomadic instinct are always stirring the wish to travel, and in the spring and summer, it commonly gets the victory. Chaucer notes of the month of April,

        Than longen folk to goon on pilgrymages,
        And palmers for to seken straunge strondes,
        To ferne halwes, couthe in sondry londes."

The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson