All these years he spent his time mainly in his home at Cooperstown. There, besides the pleasure he found in the improvement of the extensive grounds about his house, he gave full vent to that latent passion for wasting money in agricultural operations, which seems to be one of the most widely-extended peculiarities of the English race. On the eastern shore of the lake, about a mile from the village, he bought a farm of about two hundred acres which he called the "Chalet." The view from it was exceedingly beautiful, looking as it did down the Valley of (p. 264) the Susquehanna. The farm, too, had its picturesque and poetical features; but unhappily it was little adapted to practical agriculture. It stood on a hill-side, the abruptness of which was only occasionally relieved by a few acres of level land. Much of it was still covered with the original forest; and a good deal of the cleared land was full of stumps. To superintend the removal of these latter was one of Cooper's chief relaxations from mental labor. It is a desirable thing to do, but it has never been found pecuniarily profitable in itself. To this place Cooper daily drove in the summer season, and spent two or three hours directing the operations that were going on, finding constantly new ways to spend money, and doubtless pleasing himself occasionally with the fancy that the farm would at some time pay expenses. And in the best sense it did pay expenses. It gave regular diversion to his life; it ministered constantly to his enjoyment of the beautiful in scenery; and it occupied his thoughts with perpetual projects of improvement for which its character furnished unlimited opportunities. He had bought it for pleasure and not for profit; and in that it yielded him a full return for the money invested. CHAPTER XII. (p. 265) 1850-1851.