I planted about two acres and a half of upland. Before any woodchuck or squirrel had run across the road, or the sun had gotten above the shrub-oaks, while all the dew was on—I would advise you to do all your work if possible while the dew is on—I began to [level the ranks] of haughty weeds in my beanfield and to throw dust upon their heads. Early in the morning I worked barefooted, dabbling like a [plastic artist] in the dewy and crumbling sand, but later in the day the sun blistered my feet. The sun lighted me to hoe beans, pacing slowly backward and forward over that yellow gravelly upland, between the long green rows, fifteen rods, the one end terminating in a shrub-oak copse where I could rest in the shade the other in a blackberry field where the green berries deepened their tints by the time I had made another round. Removing the weeds putting fresh soil about the bean stems and encouraging this weed which I had sown, making the yellow soil [express its summer thought] in bean leaves and blossoms rather than in wormwood and piper and millet grass, making the earth say beans instead of grass—this was my daily work. As I had little aid from horses or cattle, or hired men or boys, or improved [implements of husbandry], I was much slower, and became much more intimate with my beans than usual.
It was a singular experience, that long acquaintance which I cultivated with beans, what with planting, and hoeing, and harvesting, and threshing, and picking over and selling them—the last was the hardest of all—I might add eating for I did taste. I was determined to know beans. When they were growing, I used to hoe from five o’clock in the morning till noon, and commonly spent the rest of the day about other affairs. Consider the [intimate and curious acquaintance] one makes with various kinds of weeds. That’s Roman wormwood—that’s pigweed—that’s sorrel—that’s piper-grass—have at him, chop him up, turn his roots upward to the sun, don’t let him have a fiber in the shade; if you do he’ll turn himself t’other side up and be as green as a leek in two days. A long war, not with cranes, but with weeds, those Trojans who had sun and rain and dews on their side. Daily the beans saw me come to their rescue armed with a hoe, and thin the ranks of their enemies, filling up the trenches with weedy dead. Many a lusty [crest-waving Hector], that towered a whole foot above his crowding comrades, fell before my weapon and rolled in the dust.
My farm outgoes for the season were, for implements, seed, work, etc., $14.72½. I got twelve bushels of beans and eighteen bushels of potatoes, besides some peas and sweet corn. The yellow corn and turnips were too late to come to anything. My whole income from the farm was—
| $23.44 | |
| Deducting the outgoes | 14.72½ |
| There are left | $ 8.71½ |
This is the result of my experience in raising beans. Plant the common small white bush bean about the first of June, in rows three feet by eighteen inches apart, being careful to select fresh, round, and unmixed seed. First look out for worms, and [supply vacancies] by planting anew. Then look out for woodchucks, if it is an exposed place, for they will nibble off the earliest tender leaves almost clean as they go; and again, when the young tendrils make their appearance, they have notice of it, and will shear them off with both buds and young pods, sitting erect like a squirrel. But above all, harvest as early as possible, if you would escape frosts and have a fair and salable crop; you may save much loss by this means.
NOTES AND QUESTIONS
Biography. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was born in Concord, Massachusetts, and was educated in the village schools and later at Harvard University. He was an intimate friend of Emerson, Hawthorne, and the Alcotts. With the help of Emerson, he built a cottage beside a pond in Walden Woods near Concord where he lived alone, planted beans, caught fish, and for the most part lived on the products of the soil, cultivated by his own hands. In his book, Walden, or Life in the Woods, he gives a detailed account of his observations and experiences. Other books by Thoreau are A Week on the Concord and the Merrimack Rivers, The Maine Woods, etc.
Discussion. 1. Why did Thoreau wish to earn some extra money? 2. What seeds did he plant? 3. The author likens the hoeing of the beans to a “Herculean labor”; explain this reference. 4. What were Thoreau’s auxiliaries? His enemies? 5. According to the author, what is the best time to work in the garden? 6. How did he come “to know beans” so well? 7. Explain the metaphor referring to the weeds as Trojans. 8. How much did the author clear on his garden? 9. Do you think the amount made was worth the labor put into it? 10. Tell one of your experiences with a garden.
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