I have deliberated a long time about coupling some of my sketches of outdoor nature with a few chapters of a more purely literary character, and thus confiding to my reader what absorbs and delights me inside my four walls, as well as what pleases and engages me outside those walls; especially since I have aimed to bring my outdoor spirit and method within, and still to look upon my subject with the best naturalist's eye I could command. I hope, therefore, he will not be scared away when I boldly confront him in the latter portions of my book with this name of strange portent, Walt Whitman, for I assure him that in this misjudged man he may press the strongest poetic pulse that has yet beaten in America, or perhaps in modern times. Then, these chapters are a proper supplement or continuation of my themes and their analogy in literature, because in them we shall "follow out these lessons of the earth and air," and behold their application to higher matters.

John Burroughs (1837 - 1921) was an American naturalist important to the Conservation movement. He like Thoreau wrote essays on nature. Burroughs was the "Grand Old Man of Nature" when the American romance with nature, and the American conservation movement, had come fully into their own. He grew up on a farm in New York and at age 17 became a teacher. Burroughs wrote over 30 books and published hundreds of essays.