This will testify for me that I was not idle, and that I spared no pains to bring to pass whatever appeared necessary for my comfortable support, for I considered the keeping up a breed of tame creatures thus at my hand would be a living magazine of flesh, milk, butter, and cheese for me as long as I lived in the place, if it were to be forty years; and that keeping them in my reach depended entirely upon my perfecting my enclosures to such a degree that I might be sure of keeping them together; which by this method, indeed, I so effectually secured, that when these little stakes began to grow, I had planted them so very thick that I was forced to pull some of them up again.
Me parecía que tener un rebaño de animales domésticos era disponer de una reserva viviente de carne, leche, mantequilla y queso, que no se agotaría mientras viviese allí, así pasaran cuarenta años. La posibilidad de conservar esa reserva dependía exclusivamente de que fuera capaz de perfeccionar los corrales para mantener los animales unidos, cosa que logré con tanto éxito que cuando las estacas comenzaron a crecer, como las había plantado tan cerca unas de otras, me vi obligado a arrancar algunas de ellas.