What does Thoreau mean by his comment, "It makes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm or the county jail"?

This quote
is found in paragraph 5 of the Where I Lived, and What I Lived For chapter in . It follows
Thoreaus recounting of a time when he considered buying a farm. He did not purchase the
property. He ends the story with a vow of advice to himself and perhaps to his readers as well:
As long as possible live free and uncommitted. It makes but little difference whether you are
committed to a farm or the county jail.

Thoreau liked to use wordplay and
literary devices in his writing. Here he uses two different meanings of the word committed to
add a twist to his conclusion. To be committed to a farm is to be bound to it by ownership and
dedication. To be committed to the county jail is to be put into official custody of law
enforcement authorities. The first one is by choice, the second one is by force. In the first
one, the person is in charge of everything. In the second one, other people are in charge. But
Thoreau sees these ties as being similar. Owning a property is a full-time responsibility that
he equates with doing time in prison. You are chained to the place, one way or
another.

Other than the house he built and lived in at Walden Pondand only
that building itself, not the land that it sat on (which belonged to Ralph
Waldo Emerson)Henry Thoreau never owned real estate. He lived with his parents or with the
Emerson family. He discovered that he could enjoy his lifestyle more by being free of this
responsibility. Besides, he did a lot of work as a property surveyor. In this job, he could
scrutinize every inch of a property temporarily, and not be tied to it
forever.