Marimonda has just returned from a tour in the woods, bringing fruits of all sorts, among them some which Selkirk has never before seen.  He tastes them with more care and attention than usual; then, becoming thoughtful, with his chin resting on his hand says to himself:  ’Why should I not make these fruits grow at my door, not far from my habitation?  Why should I not attempt to improve them by cultivation?  This is a very simple and very prudent idea which should have occurred to me long since; but I was alone, absolutely alone; and one loses courage when thinking of self only.  A garden, at once an orchard and a vegetable garden, will be at least as useful to me as my fish-pond and bed of water-cresses; I will make one around my cabin; it will set it off and give it a more home-like appearance!  Is not the stream placed here expressly to traverse it and water it?  Afterwards, if God assist me, I will raise little kids which will become goats and give me milk, butter, cheese!  Why have I not thought of this before?  It would have been too much to have undertaken at once.  I shall then have tame goats; I will also have Guinea-pigs, agoutis, and coatis.  My house shall be enlarged, I will have a farm, a dairy!  But the time has not yet come; let us first prepare the garden.  Why has it not been already prepared?  I am impatient to render the earth productive, fruitful by my cares, to walk in the shade of the trees I may plant; it seems to me that I shall be at home there, more than any where else!’

You are right, Selkirk; to possess the entire island, is to possess nothing; it is simply to have permission to hunt, a right of promenade and pasture, which the other inhabitants of the island, quadrupeds or birds, can claim as well as yourself.  What is property, without the power of improvement?  Can the earth become the domain of a single person, when the true limits of his possessions must always be those of the field which affords him subsistence?  Envy not then the happiness of the rich; they are but the transient holders and distributors of the public fortune; we possess, in reality, only that which we can ourselves enjoy; the rest escapes us, and contributes to the well-being of others.

Selkirk comprehends that his streams, his bank of turf, his fish-pond, his bed of water-cresses, his grotto, his cabin, belong to him far otherwise than the twelve or fifteen square leagues of his island; to his private domain he now intends to add a garden, and this garden, this orchard, will be to him an increase of his wealth, since it will aid in the satisfaction of his wants.

The humidity with which the earth begins to be penetrated, facilitates his labors; he sets himself to the work.

Behold him then, now armed with his hatchet, now with a wooden shovel, which he has just manufactured, clearing the ground, digging, transplanting young fruit-trees, or sowing the seeds which he is soon to see spring up and prosper.  Every thing grows rapidly in these climates.