sacrificing in his mind not only his first but his last fruits also.

knows. This was my curious labor all summer -- to make this portion

the soil. But soon my homestead was out of their sight and thought.

another. Thats Roman wormwood -- thats pigweed -- thats sorrel

good relish -- for why should we always stand for trifles? -- and

We are wont to forget that the sun looks on our cultivated

results which are not harvested by me. Do they not grow for

terminating in a shrub oak copse where I could rest in the shade,

plaster. It was a cheap sort of top dressing in which I had entire

have an eye to them; and this is my days work. It is a fine broad

pleasant flowers, produce instead this pulse. What shall I learn of

levelling whole ranks of one species, and sedulously cultivating

-- thats piper-grass -- have at him, chop him up, turn his roots

and another, and I am obliged to say to you, Reader, that the seeds

away. Fellow-travellers as they rattled by compared it aloud with

not plant beans and corn with so much industry another summer, but

grow in this soil, even with less toil and manurance, and sustain

popguns to these woods, and some waifs of martial music occasionally

Before yet any woodchuck or squirrel had run across the road, or

looked round for a woodchuck or a skunk to exercise my chivalry

was once a sacred art; but it is pursued with irreverent haste and

-------

may be ashes or plaster. But here were two acres and a half of

to Varro the old Romans "called the same earth Mother and Ceres, and

pond, as leaves are raised by the wind to float in the heavens; such

But to be more particular, for it is complained that Mr. Coleman

Plowing, harrowing, and furrowing ............ 7.50 Too much.

man the other day, to my astonishment, making the holes with a hoe

lived under these heavens, and their small implements of war and

Wayland road, brought me information of the "trainers." It seemed

had got out two or three cords of stumps, I did not give it any

Jove, but to the infernal Plutus rather. By avarice and

beans to eat, for I am by nature a Pythagorean, so far as beans are

the village was a vast bellows and all the buildings expanded and

rent, torn at last to very rags and tatters, and yet a seamless cope

rest, and break up their ancient herb garden? Soon, however, the

which I planted, if indeed they were the seeds of those virtues,

day of it -- like a mote in the eye, or in heavens eye, falling

air. I harvested twelve bushels of beans.

heedlessness by us, our object being to have large farms and large

of the earths surface, which had yielded only cinquefoil,

from Boston to this my native town, through these very woods and

when we knew not what ailed us, to recognize any generosity in man

though the slightest amount or new variety of it, along the road.

the silicates and the potash; but in all dells and pond-holes in the

strength like Antaeus. But why should I raise them? Only Heaven

certain magnetism in it, by which it attracts the salt, power, or

other sordid temperings being but the vicars succedaneous to this

the most part is lean and effete. My enemies are worms, cool days,

in the air, had taken root and grown in him. Here comes such a

upon the most sonorous of their domestic utensils, were endeavoring

and I saw no difference in it.

speca, from spe, hope) should not be the only hope of the

earliest had grown considerably before the latest were in the

all your work if possible while the dew is on -- I began to level

which tempt him. He sacrifices not to Ceres and the Terrestrial

has reported chiefly the expensive experiments of gentlemen farmers,

a new generatio九*九*藏*書n of men? We should really be fed and cheered if

planting anew. Then look out for woodchucks, if it is an exposed

concerned, whether they mean porridge or voting, and exchanged them

Five"large potatoes ..................... 2.50

particularly pious or just (maximeque pius quaestus), and according

quite away, and the hum had ceased, and the most favorable breezes

cattle, or hired men or boys, or improved implements of husbandry, I

This further experience also I gained: I said to myself, I will

woodchucks partly? The ear of wheat (in Latin spica, obsoletely

have fallen, I have cooked my supper with their stumps, and a new

common small white bush bean about the first of June, in rows three

of regarding the soil as property, or the means of acquiring

who had gone to the city to attend the oratorios. The nighthawk

exhausted lay fields which enjoy their sabbath," had perchance, as

kindredship is in nature. The hawk is aerial brother of the wave

Commonly men will only be brave as their fathers were brave, or

said this to myself; but now another summer is gone, and another,

Peas for seed ................................ 0.40

Spread, as he meant to fly, then close again --"

timid. This generation is very sure to plant corn and beans each

farmers of New England, devoted to husbandry. Not that I wanted

productions, but which are for the most part broadcast and floating

so that we should suspect that we might be conversing with an angel.

Those summer days which some of my contemporaries devoted to the

upland, between the long green rows, fifteen rods, the one end

reminded me of a march of crusaders in the horizon, with a slight

and most of all woodchucks. The last have nibbled for me a quarter

longer beans that I hoed, nor I that hoed beans; and I remembered

should never stand upon ceremony with sincerity. We should never

first settlers to do, as if there were a fate in it. I saw an old

nature yields in the still wilder fields unimproved by man? The

oportet), from

and others to trade in London or New York, I thus, with the other

loosely hanging in festoons; I the home-staying, laborious native of

me, for surely it has not been exhausted for these crops. Alas! I

or Nature, to share any unmixed and heroic joy.

curious acquaintance one makes with various kinds of weeds -- it

beans, pacing slowly backward and forward over that yellow gravelly

the other in a blackberry field where the green berries deepened

I was determined to know beans. When they were growing, I used to

our contemporary. When I paused to lean on my hoe, these sounds and

not rejoice also at the abundance of the weeds whose seeds are the

found them; graceful and slender like ripples caught up from the

Leaving a pecuniary profit,

Nine"small .............................. 2.25

of an acre clean. But what right had I to oust johnswort and the

I felt proud to know that the liberties of Massachusetts and of

Potatoes for seed ............................ 1.33

garden. Therefore we should receive the benefit of his light and

meet thus in haste. Most men I do not meet at all, for they seem

hoeing again I was filled with an inexpressible confidence, and

course. In his view the earth is all equally cultivated like a

genial to it, which water and make it green. These beans have

was seven miles already planted, were impatient to be hoed, for the

takes stiffness out of our joints, and makes us supple and buoyant,

as I have elsewhere said, of .............. $ 8.71+

in the agricultural world. This was one field not in Mr. Colemans

in! But why should not the New Englander try new adventures, and

anciently dwelread.99csw.comt here and planted corn and beans ere white men came

thrasher -- or red mavis, as some love to call him -- all the

constant and imperishable moral, and to the scholar it yields a

Beans for seed ............................... 3.12+

alternately soaring and descending, approaching, and leaving one

to clear the land, and so, to some extent, had exhausted the soil

classic result. A very agricola laboriosus was I to travellers

new year precisely as the Indians did centuries ago and taught the

Ancient poetry and mythology suggest, at least, that husbandry

the farmer expresses a sense of the sacredness of his calling, or is

might have become a dissipation. Though I gave them no manure, and

his orchards -- raise other crops than these? Why concern ourselves

new foes.

was attracted by the passage of wild pigeons from this wood to that,

from time to time with a swoop and a sound as if the heavens were

husbandman; its kernel or grain (granum from gerendo, bearing) is

crop of English hay is carefully weighed, the moisture calculated,

echoed to the woods and the sky, and was an accompaniment to my

Horse cultivator and boy three hours ......... 1.00

labor which yielded an instant and immeasurable crop. It was no

not all that it bears. How, then, can our harvest fail? Shall I

tantivy and tremulous motion of the elm tree tops which overhang the

on the honey with which it was smeared.

that they alone were left of the race of King Saturn."

clean as they go; and again, when the young tendrils make their

both buds and young pods, sitting erect like a squirrel. But above

manure; but in the course of the summer it appeared by the

When there were several bands of musicians, it sounded as if all

pursued my labor cheerfully with a calm trust in the future.

so much about our beans for seed, and not be concerned at all about

weeds, putting fresh soil about the bean stems, and encouraging this

this dry soil, and what fertility is in the soil itself, which for

not excepting our cattle-shows and so-called Thanksgivings, by which

of my presence and influence is seen in these bean leaves, corn

that sings of fame, and I felt as if I could spit a Mexican with a

for this very crop.

continued to plant when others had begun to hoe -- the ministerial

As I drew a still fresher soil about the rows with my hoe, I

husbandman had not suspected it. "Corn, my boy, for fodder; corn

I planted about two acres and a half of upland; and as it was

of the earth, something more than erect, like swallows alighted and

value the seed of these beans, and harvest that in the fall of the

to do with your planting, and yet prefer it to leached ashes or

appearance, they have notice of it, and will shear them off with

was much slower, and became much more intimate with my beans than

my outgoes were,--

will bear some iteration in the account, for there was no little

last was the hardest of all -- I might add eating, for I did taste.

do hell turn himself t other side up and be as green as a leek in

anxiety, as the squirrels manifest no concern whether the woods will

did not hoe them all once, I hoed them unusualy well as far as I

Meanwhile my beans, the length of whose rows, added together,

there soon, either scarlatina or canker-rash, until at length some

told no tale, I knew that they had got the last drone of them all

sometimes I watched a pair of hen-hawks circling high in the sky,

On gala days the town fires its great guns, which echo like

In all .................................... $23.44

usual. But labor of the hands, even when pursued to the verge of

Nine bushels and twelve quarts of beans sold .. $16.94

have sometimes hadread.99csw.com a vague sense all the day of some sort of itching

bear chestnuts this year or not, and finish his labor with every

eyes. Almost the same johnswort springs from the same perennial

either side of the road, so they made the most of it; and sometimes

remaining beans will be too tough for them, and go forward to meet

virtue (call it either) which gives it life, and is the logic of all

Grass ........................................... 1.00

inexhaustible entertainment which the country offers.

the day the sun blistered my feet. There the sun lighted me to hoe

blackberries, johnswort, and the like, before, sweet wild fruits and

safely into the Middlesex hive, and that now their minds were bent

up, pull it up, pull it up." But this was not corn, and so it was

such seeds, if the seed is not lost, as sincerity, truth,

upward to the sun, dont let him have a fibre in the shade, if you

but as a robber. Cato says that the profits of agriculture are

cheerfully returning to their wild and primitive state that I

hunting were brought to the light of this modern day. They lay

their heads. Early in the morning I worked barefooted, dabbling

For a hoe ................................... $ 0.54

the man in the field heard more of travellers gossip and comment

me as the principal cultivator, but away from me to influences more

My income was (patrem familias vendacem, non emacem esse

walking on the ground:--

though the farmers warned me against it -- I would advise you to do

beans or beans of me? I cherish them, I hoe them, early and late I

than was meant for his ear: "Beans so late! peas so late!" -- for I

the fields which they had passed, so that I came to know how I stood

the labor and stir we keep about it, to sustain us; all dungings and

"And as he spake, his wings would now and then

reminded of its sacred origin. It is the premium and the feast

not lay so much stress on his grain, his potato and grass crop, and

woods and pastures and swamps grows a rich and various crop only

place, for they will nibble off the earliest tender leaves almost

unreaped by man. Mine was, as it were, the connecting link between

year? This broad field which I have looked at so long looks not to

It was the only open and cultivated field for a great distance on

for the seventieth time at least, and not for himself to lie down

Many a lusty crest -- waving Hector, that towered a whole foot above

ranks of their enemies, filling up the trenches with weedy dead.

neighbors, according to Virgils advice, by a faint tintinnabulum

bits of pottery and glass brought hither by the recent cultivators

which he sails over and surveys, those his perfect air-inflated

It was on the whole a rare amusement, which, continued too long,

small part of the glorious picture which he beholds in his daily

and when there was a military turnout of which I was ignorant, I

for fodder." "Does he live there?" asks the black bonnet of the

clearing only the same everlastingly great look that it wears daily,

the ranks of haughty weeds in my bean-field and throw dust upon

have a fair and salable crop; you may save much loss by this means.

This is the result of my experience in raising beans: Plant the

his crowding comrades, fell before my weapon and rolled in the dust.

with a slight quivering winnowing sound and carrier haste; or from

staff between his work, not as a mushroom, but partially risen out

when we met a man we were sure to see that some of the qualities

In all .................................. $14.72+

sights I heard and saw anywhere in the row, a part of the

crops merely. We have no festival, nor procession, nor cerereａｄ•99ｃｓｗ•ｃｏmmony,

another, as if they were the embodiment of my own thoughts. Or I

their tints by the time I had made another bout. Removing the

bound westward through Lincoln and Wayland to nobody knows where;

his amateur Paganini performances on one string or on twenty, have

the rest of the day about other affairs. Consider the intimate and

more than I wanted. They attached me to the earth, and so I got

leaf to look on. My auxiliaries are the dews and rains which water

Horse and cart to get crop ................... 0.75

feet by eighteen inches apart, being careful to select fresh round

morning, glad of your society, that would find out another farmers

harvesting, and threshing, and picking over and selling them -- the

cultivated, and my hoe played the Rans des Vaches for them.

these, and Congress help to distribute them over all the land. We

iteration in the labor -- disturbing their delicate organizations so

all reflect and absorb his rays alike, and the former make but a

Turnip seed .................................. 0.06

more favorable puff of wind, making haste over the fields and up the

weed which I had sown, making the yellow soil express its summer

of the soil. When my hoe tinkled against the stones, that music

--------

deal with a man thus plodding ever, leaning on a hoe or a spade as a

fields and on the prairies and forests without distinction. They

all harvest as early as possible, if you would escape frosts and

cultivated with beans, what with planting, and hoeing, and

two days. A long war, not with cranes, but with weeds, those

the sake of tropes and expression, to serve a parable-maker one day.

half-civilized, and others savage or barbarous, so my field was,

remained; small imps that fill the air and lay their eggs on the

heat with a corresponding trust and magnanimity. What though I

cheat and insult and banish one another by our meanness, if there

day, relinquishing all claim to the produce of his fields, and

were present the kernel of worth and friendliness. We should not

circled overhead in the sunny afternoons -- for I sometimes made a

they sitting at their ease in gigs, with elbows on knees, and reins

cries -- "Drop it, drop it -- cover it up, cover it up -- pull it

spade." "The earth," he adds elsewhere, "especially if fresh, has a

end of the town, the big guns sounded as if a puffball had burst;

village. This was one of the great days; though the sky had from my

drudgery, is perhaps never the worst form of idleness. It has a

thought that they who cultivated it led a pious and useful life, and

this field, to the pond. It is one of the oldest scenes stamped on

not to have time; they are busy about their beans. We would not

Stalks .......................................... 0.75

faith.

the sun had got above the shrub oaks, while all the dew was on,

and recommends a little chip dirt, or any little waste stuff, or it

wings answering to the elemental unfledged pinions of the sea. Or

ruthlessly, and making such invidious distinctions with his hoe,

growth is rising all around, preparing another aspect for new infant

arrowheads which I turned up in hoeing, that an extinct nation had

selfishness, and a grovelling habit, from which none of us is free,

with as much pity as pride, if I remembered at all, my acquaintances

our fatherland were in such safe keeping; and as I turned to my

ground; indeed they were not easily to be put off. What was the

Near at hand, upon the topmost spray of a birch, sings the brown

to inquire what you are doing where he sees no manure in the furrow,

collapsed alternately with a din. But sometimes it was a really

Our ambassadors sho九_九_藏_書uld be instructed to send home such seeds as

only about fifteen years since the land was cleared, and I myself

very water. The pines still stand here older than I; or, if some

were wormeaten or had lost their vitality, and so did not come up.

root in this pasture, and even I have at length helped to clothe

Sir Kenelm Digby thinks likely, attracted "vital spirits" from the

Trojans who had sun and rain and dews on their side. Daily the

went, and was paid for it in the end, "there being in truth," as

improvement." Moreover, this being one of those "worn-out and

Bread may not always nourish us; but it always does us good, it even

with us, and the farmer leads the meanest of lives. He knows Nature

noble and inspiring strain that reached these woods, and the trumpet

gray coat; and the hard-featured farmer reins up his grateful dobbin

-- this was my daily work. As I had little aid from horses or

continual motion, repastination, and turning of the mould with the

and unmixed seed. First look out for worms, and supply vacancies by

hoe from five oclock in the morning till noon, and commonly spent

which I have named, which we all prize more than those other

and disease in the horizon, as if some eruption would break out

thought in bean leaves and blossoms rather than in wormwood and

safe from such enemies as he. You may wonder what his rigmarole,

granary of the birds? It matters little comparatively whether the

Evelyn says, "no compost or laetation whatsoever comparable to this

It was a singular experience that long acquaintance which I

blades, and potato vines.

my memory. And now to-night my flute has waked the echoes over that

wild and cultivated fields; as some states are civilized, and others

under a rotten stump my hoe turned up a sluggish portentous and

mingled with other natural stones, some of which bore the marks of

like a plastic artist in the dewy and crumbling sand, but later in

to call them down into the hive again. And when the sound died

When I was four years old, as I well remember, I was brought

labor, I knew not. I came to love my rows, my beans, though so many

disturbed the ashes of unchronicled nations who in primeval years

being an aversion to other carts and horses -- and chip dirt far

ground on bare sand or rocks on the tops of hills, where few have

meaning of this so steady and self-respecting, this small Herculean

that fabulous landscape of my infant dreams, and one of the results

furrows, and only a hoe for cart and two hands to draw it -- there

piper and millet grass, making the earth say beans instead of grass

field if yours were not here. While you are planting the seed, he

report. And, by the way, who estimates the value of the crop which

subtile and ineffable quality, for instance, as truth or justice,

penetrate thus far. To me, away there in my bean-field at the other

fine arts in Boston or Rome, and others to contemplation in India,

fields fill the farmers barns. The true husbandman will cease from

having been burned by Indian fires, and some by the sun, and also

outlandish spotted salamander, a trace of Egypt and the Nile, yet

beans saw me come to their rescue armed with a hoe, and thin the

property chiefly, the landscape is deformed, husbandry is degraded

upon. These martial strains seemed as far away as Palestine, and

simplicity, faith, innocence, and the like, and see if they will not

by the distant hum as if somebodys bees had swarmed, and that the

for rice; but, perchance, as some must work in fields if only for

though not in a bad sense, a half-cultivated field. They were beans

White line for crow fence .................... 0.02