meanwhile my beans, the length of whose rows, added together, was seven miles already planted, were impatient to be hoed, for the earliest had grown considerably before the latest were in the ground; indeed they were not easily to be put off. what was the meaning of this so steady and self-respecting, this small herculean labor, i knew not. i came to love my rows, my beans, though so many more than i wanted. they attached me to the earth, and so i got strength like antaeus. but why should i raise them? only heaven knows. this was my curious labor all summer -- to make this portion of the earth's surface, which had yielded only cinquefoil, blackberries, johnswort, and the like, before, sweet wild fruits and pleasant flowers, produce instead this pulse. what shall i learn of beans or beans of me? i cherish them, i hoe them, early and late i have an eye to them; and this is my day's work. it is a fine broad leaf to look on. my auxiliaries are the dews and rains which water this dry soil, and what fertility is in the soil itself, which for the most part is lean and effete. my enemies are worms, cool days, and most of all woodchucks. the last have nibbled for me a quarter of an acre clean. but what right had i to oust johnswort and the rest, and break up their ancient herb garden? soon, however, the remaining beans will be too tough for them, and go forward to meet new foes.
when i was four years old, as i well remember, i was brought from boston to this my native town, through these very woods and this field, to the pond. it is one of the oldest scenes stamped on my memory. and now to-night my flute has waked the echoes over that very water. the pines still stand here older than i; or, if some have fallen, i have cooked my supper with their stumps, and a new growth is rising all around, preparing another aspect for new infant eyes. almost the same johnswort springs from the same perennial root in this pasture, and even i have at length helped to clothe that fabulous landscape of my infant dreams, and one of the results of my presence and influence is seen in these bean leaves, corn blades, and potato vines.
i planted about two acres and a half of upland; and as it was only about fifteen years since the land was cleared, and i myself had got out two or three cords of stumps, i did not give it any manure; but in the course of the summer it appeared by the arrowheads which i turned up in hoeing, that an extinct nation had anciently dwelt here and planted corn and beans ere white men came to clear the land, and so, to some extent, had exhausted the soil for this very crop.
before yet any woodchuck or squirrel had run across the road, or the sun had got above the shrub oaks, while all the dew was on, though the farmers warned me against it -- 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 bean-field and 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. there 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 bout. 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. but labor of the hands, even when pursued to the verge of drudgery, is perhaps never the worst form of idleness. it has a constant and imperishable moral, and to the scholar it yields a classic result. a very agricola laboriosus was i to travellers bound westward through lincoln and wayland to nobody knows where; they sitting at their ease in gigs, with elbows on knees, and reins loosely hanging in festoons; i the home-staying, laborious native of the soil. but soon my homestead was out of their sight and thought. it was the only open and cultivated field for a great distance on either side of the road, so they made the most of it; and sometimes the man in the field heard more of travellers' gossip and comment than was meant for his ear: "beans so late! peas so late!" -- for i continued to plant when others had begun to hoe -- the ministerial husbandman had not suspected it. "corn, my boy, for fodder; corn for fodder." "does he live there?" asks the black bonnet of the gray coat; and the hard-featured farmer reins up his grateful dobbin to inquire what you are doing where he sees no manure in the furrow, and recommends a little chip dirt, or any little waste stuff, or it may be ashes or plaster. but here were two acres and a half of furrows, and only a hoe for cart and two hands to draw it -- there being an aversion to other carts and horses -- and chip dirt far away. fellow-travellers as they rattled by compared it aloud with the fields which they had passed, so that i came to know how i stood in the agricultural world. this was one field not in mr. coleman's report. and, by the way, who estimates the value of the crop which nature yields in the still wilder fields unimproved by man? the crop of english hay is carefully weighed, the moisture calculated, the silicates and the potash; but in all dells and pond-holes in the woods and pastures and swamps grows a rich and various crop only unreaped by man. mine was, as it were, the connecting link between wild and cultivated fields; as some states are civilized, and others half-civilized, and others savage or barbarous, so my field was, though not in a bad sense, a half-cultivated field. they were beans cheerfully returning to their wild and primitive state that i cultivated, and my hoe played the rans des vaches for them.
near at hand, upon the topmost spray of a birch, sings the brown thrasher -- or red mavis, as some love to call him -- all the morning, glad of your society, that would find out another farmer's field if yours were not here. while you are planting the seed, he cries -- "drop it, drop it -- cover it up, cover it up -- pull it up, pull it up, pull it up." but this was not corn, and so it was safe from such enemies as he. you may wonder what his rigmarole, his amateur paganini performances on one string or on twenty, have to do with your planting, and yet prefer it to leached ashes or plaster. it was a cheap sort of top dressing in which i had entire faith.
as i drew a still fresher soil about the rows with my hoe, i disturbed the ashes of unchronicled nations who in primeval years lived under these heavens, and their small implements of war and hunting were brought to the light of this modern day. they lay mingled with other natural stones, some of which bore the marks of having been burned by indian fires, and some by the sun, and also bits of pottery and glass brought hither by the recent cultivators of the soil. when my hoe tinkled against the stones, that music echoed to the woods and the sky, and was an accompaniment to my labor which yielded an instant and immeasurable crop. it was no longer beans that i hoed, nor i that hoed beans; and i remembered with as much pity as pride, if i remembered at all, my acquaintances who had gone to the city to attend the oratorios. the nighthawk circled overhead in the sunny afternoons -- for i sometimes made a day of it -- like a mote in the eye, or in heaven's eye, falling from time to time with a swoop and a sound as if the heavens were rent, torn at last to very rags and tatters, and yet a seamless cope remained; small imps that fill the air and lay their eggs on the ground on bare sand or rocks on the tops of hills, where few have found them; graceful and slender like ripples caught up from the pond, as leaves are raised by the wind to float in the heavens; such kindredship is in nature. the hawk is aerial brother of the wave which he sails over and surveys, those his perfect air-inflated wings answering to the elemental unfledged pinions of the sea. or sometimes i watched a pair of hen-hawks circling high in the sky, alternately soaring and descending, approaching, and leaving one another, as if they were the embodiment of my own thoughts. or i was attracted by the passage of wild pigeons from this wood to that, with a slight quivering winnowing sound and carrier haste; or from under a rotten stump my hoe turned up a sluggish portentous and outlandish spotted salamander, a trace of egypt and the nile, yet our contemporary. when i paused to lean on my hoe, these sounds and sights i heard and saw anywhere in the row, a part of the inexhaustible entertainment which the country offers.
on gala days the town fires its great guns, which echo like popguns to these woods, and some waifs of martial music occasionally penetrate thus far. to me, away there in my bean-field at the other end of the town, the big guns sounded as if a puffball had burst; and when there was a military turnout of which i was ignorant, i have sometimes had a vague sense all the day of some sort of itching and disease in the horizon, as if some eruption would break out there soon, either scarlatina or canker-rash, until at length some more favorable puff of wind, making haste over the fields and up the wayland road, brought me information of the "trainers." it seemed by the distant hum as if somebody's bees had swarmed, and that the neighbors, according to virgil's advice, by a faint tintinnabulum upon the most sonorous of their domestic utensils, were endeavoring to call them down into the hive again. and when the sound died quite away, and the hum had ceased, and the most favorable breezes told no tale, i knew that they had got the last drone of them all safely into the middlesex hive, and that now their minds were bent on the honey with which it was smeared.
i felt proud to know that the liberties of massachusetts and of our fatherland were in such safe keeping; and as i turned to my hoeing again i was filled with an inexpressible confidence, and pursued my labor cheerfully with a calm trust in the future.
when there were several bands of musicians, it sounded as if all the village was a vast bellows and all the buildings expanded and collapsed alternately with a din. but sometimes it was a really noble and inspiring strain that reached these woods, and the trumpet that sings of fame, and i felt as if i could spit a mexican with a good relish -- for why should we always stand for trifles? -- and looked round for a woodchuck or a skunk to exercise my chivalry upon. these martial strains seemed as far away as palestine, and reminded me of a march of crusaders in the horizon, with a slight tantivy and tremulous motion of the elm tree tops which overhang the village. this was one of the great days; though the sky had from my clearing only the same everlastingly great look that it wears daily, and i saw no difference in it.
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 -- it will bear some iteration in the account, for there was no little iteration in the labor -- disturbing their delicate organizations so ruthlessly, and making such invidious distinctions with his hoe, levelling whole ranks of one species, and sedulously cultivating another. 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 fibre 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.
those summer days which some of my contemporaries devoted to the fine arts in boston or rome, and others to contemplation in india, and others to trade in london or new york, i thus, with the other farmers of new england, devoted to husbandry. not that i wanted beans to eat, for i am by nature a pythagorean, so far as beans are concerned, whether they mean porridge or voting, and exchanged them for rice; but, perchance, as some must work in fields if only for the sake of tropes and expression, to serve a parable-maker one day. it was on the whole a rare amusement, which, continued too long, might have become a dissipation. though i gave them no manure, and did not hoe them all once, i hoed them unusualy well as far as i went, and was paid for it in the end, "there being in truth," as evelyn says, "no compost or laetation whatsoever comparable to this continual motion, repastination, and turning of the mould with the spade." "the earth," he adds elsewhere, "especially if fresh, has a certain magnetism in it, by which it attracts the salt, power, or virtue (call it either) which gives it life, and is the logic of all the labor and stir we keep about it, to sustain us; all dungings and other sordid temperings being but the vicars succedaneous to this improvement." moreover, this being one of those "worn-out and exhausted lay fields which enjoy their sabbath," had perchance, as sir kenelm digby thinks likely, attracted "vital spirits" from the air. i harvested twelve bushels of beans.
but to be more particular, for it is complained that mr. coleman has reported chiefly the expensive experiments of gentlemen farmers, my outgoes were,--
for a hoe ................................... $ 0.54
plowing, harrowing, and furrowing ............ 7.50 too much.
beans for seed ............................... 3.12+
potatoes for seed ............................ 1.33
peas for seed ................................ 0.40
turnip seed .................................. 0.06
white line for crow fence .................... 0.02
horse cultivator and boy three hours ......... 1.00
horse and cart to get crop ................... 0.75
--------
in all .................................. $14.72+
my income was (patrem familias vendacem, non emacem esse oportet), from
nine bushels and twelve quarts of beans sold .. $16.94
five " large potatoes ..................... 2.50
nine " small .............................. 2.25
grass ........................................... 1.00
stalks .......................................... 0.75
-------
in all .................................... $23.44
leaving a pecuniary profit,
as i have elsewhere said, of .............. $ 8.71+
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.
this further experience also i gained: i said to myself, i will not plant beans and corn with so much industry another summer, but such seeds, if the seed is not lost, as sincerity, truth, simplicity, faith, innocence, and the like, and see if they will not grow in this soil, even with less toil and manurance, and sustain me, for surely it has not been exhausted for these crops. alas! i said this to myself; but now another summer is gone, and another, and another, and i am obliged to say to you, reader, that the seeds which i planted, if indeed they were the seeds of those virtues, were wormeaten or had lost their vitality, and so did not come up. commonly men will only be brave as their fathers were brave, or timid. this generation is very sure to plant corn and beans each new year precisely as the indians did centuries ago and taught the first settlers to do, as if there were a fate in it. i saw an old man the other day, to my astonishment, making the holes with a hoe for the seventieth time at least, and not for himself to lie down in! but why should not the new englander try new adventures, and not lay so much stress on his grain, his potato and grass crop, and his orchards -- raise other crops than these? why concern ourselves so much about our beans for seed, and not be concerned at all about a new generation of men? we should really be fed and cheered if when we met a man we were sure to see that some of the qualities which i have named, which we all prize more than those other productions, but which are for the most part broadcast and floating in the air, had taken root and grown in him. here comes such a subtile and ineffable quality, for instance, as truth or justice, though the slightest amount or new variety of it, along the road. our ambassadors should be instructed to send home such seeds as these, and congress help to distribute them over all the land. we should never stand upon ceremony with sincerity. we should never cheat and insult and banish one another by our meanness, if there were present the kernel of worth and friendliness. we should not meet thus in haste. most men i do not meet at all, for they seem not to have time; they are busy about their beans. we would not deal with a man thus plodding ever, leaning on a hoe or a spade as a staff between his work, not as a mushroom, but partially risen out of the earth, something more than erect, like swallows alighted and walking on the ground:--
"and as he spake, his wings would now and then
spread, as he meant to fly, then close again --"
so that we should suspect that we might be conversing with an angel. bread may not always nourish us; but it always does us good, it even takes stiffness out of our joints, and makes us supple and buoyant, when we knew not what ailed us, to recognize any generosity in man or nature, to share any unmixed and heroic joy.
ancient poetry and mythology suggest, at least, that husbandry was once a sacred art; but it is pursued with irreverent haste and heedlessness by us, our object being to have large farms and large crops merely. we have no festival, nor procession, nor ceremony, not excepting our cattle-shows and so-called thanksgivings, by which the farmer expresses a sense of the sacredness of his calling, or is reminded of its sacred origin. it is the premium and the feast which tempt him. he sacrifices not to ceres and the terrestrial jove, but to the infernal plutus rather. by avarice and selfishness, and a grovelling habit, from which none of us is free, of regarding the soil as property, or the means of acquiring property chiefly, the landscape is deformed, husbandry is degraded with us, and the farmer leads the meanest of lives. he knows nature but as a robber. cato says that the profits of agriculture are particularly pious or just (maximeque pius quaestus), and according to varro the old romans "called the same earth mother and ceres, and thought that they who cultivated it led a pious and useful life, and that they alone were left of the race of king saturn."
we are wont to forget that the sun looks on our cultivated fields and on the prairies and forests without distinction. they all reflect and absorb his rays alike, and the former make but a small part of the glorious picture which he beholds in his daily course. in his view the earth is all equally cultivated like a garden. therefore we should receive the benefit of his light and heat with a corresponding trust and magnanimity. what though i value the seed of these beans, and harvest that in the fall of the year? this broad field which i have looked at so long looks not to me as the principal cultivator, but away from me to influences more genial to it, which water and make it green. these beans have results which are not harvested by me. do they not grow for woodchucks partly? the ear of wheat (in latin spica, obsoletely speca, from spe, hope) should not be the only hope of the husbandman; its kernel or grain (granum from gerendo, bearing) is not all that it bears. how, then, can our harvest fail? shall i not rejoice also at the abundance of the weeds whose seeds are the granary of the birds? it matters little comparatively whether the fields fill the farmer's barns. the true husbandman will cease from anxiety, as the squirrels manifest no concern whether the woods will bear chestnuts this year or not, and finish his labor with every day, relinquishing all claim to the produce of his fields, and sacrificing in his mind not only his first but his last fruits also.
这时我的豆子，已经种好了的一行一行地加起来，长度总有七英里了吧，急待锄草松土，因为最后一批还没播种下去，最先一批已经长得很不错了；真是不容再拖延的了。这一桩赫拉克勒斯的小小劳役，干得这样卖力，这样自尊，到底有什么意思呢，我还不知道。我爱上了我的一行行的豆子，虽然它们已经超出我的需要很多了。它们使我爱上了我的土地，因此我得到了力量，像安泰一样。可是我为什么要种豆呢？只有天晓得。整个夏天，我都这样奇妙地劳动着——在大地表皮的这一块上，以前只长洋莓，狗尾草，黑莓之类，以及甜蜜的野果子和好看的花朵，而现在却让它来生长豆子了。我从豆子能学到什么，豆于从我身上又能学到什么呢？我珍爱它们，我为它们松土锄草，从早到晚照管它们；这算是我一天的工作。阔大的叶子真好看。我的助手是滋润这干燥泥土的露水和雨点。而泥土本身又含有何等的肥料，虽说其中有大部分土地是贫瘠和枯竭的。虫子，寒冷的日子，尤其土拨鼠则是我的敌人。土拨鼠吃光了我一英亩地的四分之一。可是我又有什么权利拔除狗尾草之类的植物，毁坏它们自古以来的百草园呢？好在剩下的豆子立刻就会长得十分茁壮，可以去对付一些新的敌人了。
我记得很清楚，我四岁的时候，从波士顿迁移到我这个家乡来，曾经经过这座森林和这片土地，还到过湖边。这是铭刻在我记忆中的往日最早的景象之一。今夜，我的笛声又唤醒了这同一湖水的回声。松树还站在那里，年龄比我大；或者，有的已被砍伐了，我用它们的根来煮饭，新的松树已在四周生长，给新一代人的眼睛以别一番的展望。就从这牧场上的同一根多年老根上又长出了几乎是同样的狗尾草，甚至我后来都还给我几时梦境中神话般的风景添上一袭新装，要知道我重返这里之后所发生的影响，请瞧这些豆子的叶子，玉米的尖叶以及土豆藤。我大约种了两英亩半的冈地；这片地大约十五年前还被砍伐过一次，我挖出了两三“考德”的树根来，我没有施肥；在这个夏天的那些日子里，我锄地时还翻起了一些箭头来，看来从前，在白人来砍伐之前，就有一个已经消失了的古代民族曾在这里住过，还种过玉米和豆子吧，所以，在一定程度上，他们已经耗尽了地力，有过收获了。
还在任何土拨鼠或松鼠窜过大路，或在太阳升上橡树矮林之前，当时一切都披着露珠，我就开始在豆田里拔去那高傲的败草，并且把泥土堆到它们上面，虽然有些农民不让我这样做，——可我还是劝你们尽可能趁有露水时把一切工作都做完。一清早，我赤脚工作，像一个造型的艺术家，在承露的粉碎的沙土中弄泥巴，日上三竿以后，太阳就要晒得我的脚上起泡了。太阳照射着我锄耨，我慢慢地在那黄沙的冈地上，在那长十五杆的一行行的绿叶丛中来回走动，它一端延伸到一座矮橡林为止，我常常休息在它的浓荫下；另一端延伸到一块浆果田边，我每走一个来回，总能看到那里的青色的浆果颜色又微微加深了一些。我除草根又在豆茎周围培新土，帮助我所种植的作物滋长，使这片黄土不是以苦艾、芦管、黍粟，而是以豆叶与豆花来表达它夏日幽思的。——这就是我每天的工作。因为我没有牛马，雇工或小孩的帮助，也没有改良的农具，我就特别地慢，也因此我跟豆子特别亲呢了。用手工作，到了做苦工的程度，总不能算懒惰的一种最差的形式了吧。这中间便有一个常青的、不可磨灭的真理，对学者而言，是带有古典哲学的意味的。和那些向西穿过林肯
和魏兰德到谁也不知道的地方去的旅行家相比，我就成了一个agricola laboriosus了；他们悠闲地坐在马车上，手肘放在膝盖上，疆绳松弛地垂成花饰；我却是泥土上工作的、家居的劳工。可是，我的家宅田地很快就落在他们的视线和思想之外了。因为大路两侧很长一段路上，只有我这块土地是耕植了的，自然特别引起他们注意；有时候在这块地里工作的人，听到他们的批评。那是不打算让他听见的，“豆子种得这样晚！豌豆也种晚了！”——因为别人已经开始锄地了，我却还在播种——我这业余性质的农民想也没想到过这些。“这些作物，我的孩子，只能给家畜吃的；给家畜吃的作物！”“他住在这里吗？”那穿灰色上衣戴黑色帽于的人说了；于是那口音严厉的农夫勒住他那匹感激的老马询问我，你在这里干什么，犁沟中怎么没有施肥，他提出来，应该撤些细未子的垃圾，任何废物都可以，或者灰烬，或者灰泥。可是，这里只有两英亩半犁沟，只有一把锄代替马，用两只手拖的，——我又不喜欢马车和马，——而细未子的垃圾又很远。驾车辚辚经过的一些旅行者把这块地同他们一路上所看见的，大声大气地作比较，这就使我知道我在农业世界中的地位了。这一块田地是不在柯尔门先生的报告中的。可是，顺便说一说，大自然在更荒凉的、未经人们改进的地面上所生产的谷物，谁又会去计算出它们的价值来呢？英格兰干草给小心地称过，还计算了其中的湿度和硅酸盐、碳酸钾；可是在一切的山谷、洼地、林木、牧场和沼泽地带都生长着丰富而多样的谷物，人们只是没有去收割罢了。我的呢，正好像是介乎野生的和开垦的两者之间；正如有些是开化国，有些半开化国，另一些却是野蛮国，我的田地可以称为半开化的田地，虽然这并不是从坏的意义上来说。那些豆子很快乐地回到了我培育它们的野生的原始状态去，而我的锄头就给他们高唱了牧歌。
在附近的一棵白桦树顶有棕色的歌雀——有人管它叫做红眉鸟——歌唱了一整个早晨，很愿意跟你作伴。如果你的农田不在这里，它就会飞到另一个农夫的田里去。你播种的时候，它叫起来，“丢，丢，丢了它，——遮，遮，遮起来，——拉，拉，拉上去。”可这里种的不是玉米，不会有像它那样的敌人来吃庄稼。你也许会觉得奇怪，它那无稽之歌，像用一根琴弦或二十根琴弦作的业余帕格尼尼式的演奏，跟你的播种有什么关系。可是你宁可听歌而不去准备灰烬或灰泥了。这些是我最信赖的，最便宜的一种上等肥料。
当我用锄头在犁沟边翻出新土时，我把古代曾在这个天空下居住过的一个史籍没有记载的民族所留下的灰烬翻起来了，他们作战狩猎用的小武器也就暴露在近代的阳光下。它们和另外一些天然石块混在一起，有些石块还留着给印第安人用火烧过的痕迹，有些给太阳晒过，还有一些陶器和玻璃，则大约是近代的耕种者的残迹了。当我的锄头叮当地打在石头上，音乐之声传到了树林和天空中，我的劳役有了这样的伴奏，立刻生产了无法计量的收获。我所种的不是豆子，也不是我在种豆；当时我又怜悯又骄做地记起来了，如果我确实记起来的话，我记起了我一些相识的人特地到城里听清唱剧去了。而在这艳阳天的下午，夜鹰在我头顶的上空盘旋，——我有时整天地工作，——它好像是我眼睛里的一粒沙，或者说落在天空的眼睛里的一粒沙，它时而侧翼下降，大叫一声，天空便好像给划破了，最后似裂成破布一样，但苍穹依然是一条细缝也没有；空中飞着不少小小的精灵，在地上、黄沙或岩石上、山顶上下了许多蛋，很少有人看到过的；它们美丽而细长，像湖水卷起的涟漪，又像给凤吹到空中的升腾的树叶；在大自然里有的是这样声气相投的因缘。鹰是波浪的空中兄弟，它在波浪之上飞行视察，在空中扑击的完美的鹰翅，如在酬答海洋那元素的没有羽毛的翅膀。有时我看着一对鹞鹰在高空中盘旋，一上一下，一近一远，好像它们是我自己的思想的化身。或者我给一群野鸽子吸引住了，看它们从这一个树林飞到那一个树林，带着一些儿嗡嗡的微颤的声音，急遽地飞过；有时我的锄头从烂树桩下挖出了一条蝾螈来，一副迂缓的奇怪的、丑陋的模样，还是埃及和尼罗河的残迹，却又和我们同时代了。当我停下来，靠在我的锄头上，这些声音和景象是我站在犁沟中任何一个地方都能听到看到的，这是乡间生活中具有无穷兴会的一部分。
在节庆日，城里放了礼炮，传到森林中来很像气枪，有时飘来的一些军乐声也传得这样远。我远在城外的豆田之中，听大炮的声音好像尘菌在爆裂；如果军队出动了，而我又不知道是怎么回事，我就整天恍恍惚惚感到地平线似乎痒痒麻麻的，仿佛快要出疹子似的，也许是猩红热，也许是马蹄癌，直到后来又有一些好风吹过大地，吹上魏兰德大公路，把训练者的消息带给了我。远远有营营之声，好像谁家的蜜蜂出窝了，因此邻人们依照维吉尔的办法，拿出了声音最响的锅壶之属来轻轻敲击，呼唤它们回蜂房去。等到那声音没有了，营营之声也住了，最柔和的微风也不讲故事了，我知道人们已经把最后一只雄峰也安然赶回米德尔塞克斯的蜂房了，现在他们在考虑涂满蜂房的蜂蜜了。
我感到骄做，知道马萨诸塞州和我们的祖国的自由是这样安全；当我回身再耕种的时候，我就充满了不可言喻的自信，平静地怀抱着对未来的希望，继续我的劳动。
要是有几个乐队在演奏着啊，整个村子就好像是一只大风箱了，一切建筑物交替地在嚣音之中一会儿扩张，一会儿坍下。然而有时传到林中来的是真正崇高而兴奋的乐句，喇叭歌唱着荣誉，我觉得自己仿佛可以痛痛快快地用刀刺杀一个墨西哥人，——我们为什么常要容忍一些琐碎事物？——我就四处寻找土拨鼠和鼬鼠，很想表演我的骑士精神。这种军乐的旋律遥远得像在巴勒斯坦一样，使我想起十字军在地平线上行进，犹如垂在村子上空的榆树之巅微微摇曳和颤动的动作。这是伟大的一天啊，虽然我从林中空地看天空，还和每天一样，是同样无穷尽的苍穹，我看不出有什么不同。
种豆以来，我就和豆子相处，天长日久了，得到不少专门经验，关于种植，锄地，收获，打场，拣拾，出卖，——最后这一种尤其困难，——我不妨再加上一个吃，我还吃了豆子，尝了味道的。
我是决心要了解豆子的。在它们生长的时候，我常常从早晨五点钟锄到正午，通常是用这天剩余时间来对付别的事情。想想，人跟各种杂草都还可以结交得很亲热很奇异呢，——说起这些来是怪累赘的，劳动的时候这些杂草已经够累赘的了，——把一种草全部捣毁，蛮横地摧残了它们的纤细的组织，锄头还要仔细地区别它们，为了把另一种草来培养。这是罗马艾草，——这是猪猡草，——这是酢酱草，——这是芦苇草，——抓住它，拔起它，把它的根翻起来，暴露在太阳下，别让一根纤维留在荫影中间，要不然，它就侧着身子爬起来，两天以后，就又青得像韭菜一样。这是一场长期战争，不是对付鹤，而是对付败草，这一群有太阳和雨露帮忙的特洛伊人。豆子每天都看到我带了锄头来助战，把它们的敌人杀伤了，战壕里填满了败草的尸体。有好些盔饰飘摇、结实强壮的海克脱，比这成群的同伴们高出一英尺的，也都在我的武器之下倒毙而滚入尘埃中去了。
在这炎夏的日子里，我同时代的人有的在波士顿或罗马，献身于美术，有的在印度，思索着，还有的在伦敦或纽约，做生意，我这人却跟新英格兰的其他农夫们一样，献身于农事。这样做并不是为了要吃豆子，我这人天性上属于毕达哥拉斯一派，至少在种豆子这件事上是如此。管它是为了吃，或为了选票，或为了换大米，也许只是为了给将来一个寓言家用吧，为了譬喻或影射，总得有人在地里劳动。总的说来，这是一种少有的欢乐，纵然继续得太久了，也要引起虚掷光阴的损失。虽然我没有给它们施肥，也没有给它们全部都锄一遍草、松一遍土，但我常常尽我的能力给它们锄草松土，结果是颇有好处的，“这是真的，”正像爱芙琳说过的，“任何混合肥料或粪肥都比不上不断地挥锄舞铲，把泥上来翻身。”“土地，”他还在另一个地方写着，“特别是新鲜的土地，其中有相当的磁力，可以吸引盐、力，或美德（随便你怎样称呼吧）来加强它的生命，土地也是劳力的对象，我们在土地上的所有活动养活了我们，一切粪肥和其他的恶臭的东西只不过是此种改进的代用品而已。”况且，这块地只是那些“正在享受安息日的耗尽地力、不堪利用的土地”，也许像凯南尔姆·狄格贝爵士想过的，已经从空气中吸取了“有生的力量”。我一共收获了十二蒲式耳的豆子。
为了更仔细起见，也因为柯尔门先生所报告的主要是有身份的农夫的豪华的试验，曾有人表示不满，现将我的收入支出列表如下：
一柄锄头……o·五四
耕耘挖沟……七·五0——过昂了
豆种子……三·一二五
土豆种子……一·三三
豌豆种子……o·四0
萝卜种子……o·o六
篱笆白线……o·o二
耕马及三小时雇工……一．oo
收获时用马及车……0·七五
共计……一四·七二五元我的收入（patremfamillias vendacem，non emacem esseoportet），来自卖出九蒲式耳十二
夸特之豆……一六·九四
五蒲式耳大土豆……二·五0
九蒲式耳小土豆……二·二五
草……一·oo
茎……o·七五
共计……二三·四四元
赢余（正如我在别
处所说……八·七一五元
这就是我种豆经验的结果：约在六月一日，播下那小小的白色的豆种，三英尺长十八英寸的间距，种成行列，挑选的是那新鲜的、圆的、没有掺杂的种子。要注意虫子，再在没有出苗的位置上补种苗。然后提防土拨鼠，那片田地如果曝露在外，它们会把刚刚生长出来的嫩叶子一口气都啃光的；而且，在嫩卷须延展出来之后，它们还是会注意到的，它们会直坐着，像松鼠一样，把蓓蕾和初生的豆荚一起啃掉。尤其要紧的是，如果你要它避免霜冻，并且容易把豆子卖掉，那你就尽可能早点收获；这样便可以使你免掉许多损失。
我还获得了下面的更丰富的经验：我对我自己说，下一个夏天，我不要花那么大的劳力来种豆子和玉米了，我将种这样一些种子，像诚实，真理，纯朴，信心，天真等等，如果这些种子并没有失落，看看它们能否在这片土地上生长，能否以较少劳力和肥料，来维持我的生活，因为，地力一定还没有消耗到不能种这些东西。唉！我对自己说过这些话，可是，现在又一个夏季过去了，而且又一个又一个地都过去了，我不得不告诉你们，读者啊，我所种下的种子，如果是这些美德的种子，那就都给虫子吃掉了，或者是已失去了生机，都没有长出苗来呢。人通常只能像他们的祖先一样勇敢或怯懦。这一代人每一年所种的玉米和豆子，必然和印第安人在几个世纪之前所种的一样，那是他们教给最初来到的移民的，仿佛命该如此，难以改变了。有一天，我还看见过一个老头子，使我惊讶不已，他用一把锄头挖洞至少挖了第七十次了，但他自己却不预备躺在里面。为什么新英格兰人不应该尝试尝试新的事业，不要过分地看重他的玉米，他的土豆、草料和他的果园，——而种植一些别的东西呢？为什么偏要这样关心豆子的种子而一点也不关心新一代的人类呢？我前面说起的那些品德，我们认为它们高于其他产物，如果我们遇到一个人，看到他具有我说到过的那些品德，那些飘荡四散于空中的品德已经在他那里扎根而且生长了，那时我们真应该感到满意和高兴。这里来了这样一种难以捉摸而且不可言喻的品德，例如真理或公正，虽然量极少，虽然还是一个新的品种，然而它是沿着大路而来了。我们的大使应该接到一些训令，去选择好品种，寄回国内来，然后我们的国会把它们分发到全国各地去种植。我们不应该虚伪地对待真诚。如果高贵与友情的精华已为我们所有，我们绝对不应该再让我们的卑鄙来互相欺骗、互相侮辱、排斥彼此。我们也不应该匆忙相见。大多数人我根本没有见过，似乎他们没有时间，他们忙着他们的豆子呢。我们不要跟这样的忙人往来，他在工作间歇时倚身在锄头上或铲子上，仿佛倚身在手杖上，不像一只香菌，却只有一部分是从土地中升起来的，不完全是笔直的，像燕子停落下来，在大地上行走着，——
“说话时，他的翅膀不时张开，
像要飞动，却又垂下了，——”
害得我们以为我们许是在跟一个天使谈话。面包可能并不总是滋养我们；却总于我们有益，能把我们关节中的僵硬消除，使我们柔软而活泼，甚至在我们不知道患了什么病症的时候，使我们从大自然及人间都找到仁慈，享受到任何精纯而强烈的欢乐。
古代的诗歌和神话至少提示过，农事曾经是一种神圣的艺术，但我们匆促而杂乱，我们的目标只是大田园和大丰收。我们没有节庆的日子，没有仪式，没有行列了，连耕牛大会及感恩节也不例外，农民本来是用这种形式来表示他这职业的神圣意味的，或者是用来追溯农事的神圣起源的。现在是报酬和一顿大嚼在吸引他们了。现在他献牺牲不献给色列斯，不献给约夫了，他献给普鲁都斯这恶神了。由于我们没有一个人能摆脱掉的贪婪、自私和一个卑辱的习惯，把土地看作财产，或者是获得财产的主要手段，风景给破坏了，农事跟我们一样变得低下，农民过着最屈辱的生活。他了解的大自然，如同一个强盗所了解的那样。卡托说过农业的利益是特别虔敬而且正直的（maximeque pius
quaestus），照伐洛说，古罗马的人“把地母和色列斯唤为同名，他们认为从事耕作的人过的是一个虔敬而有用的生活，只有他们才是农神的遗民”。
我们常常忘掉，太阳照在我们耕作过的田地和照在草原和森林上一样，是不分轩轾的。它们都反射并吸收了它的光线，前者只是它每天眺望的图画中的一小部分。在它看来，大地都给耕作得像花园一样。因此，我们接受它的光与热，同时也接受了它的信任与大度。我看重豆子的种子，到秋田里有了收获，又怎么样呢？我望了这么久广阔田地，广阔田地却并不当我是主要的耕种者，它撇开我，去看那些给它洒水，使它发绿的更友好的影响。豆子的成果并不由我来收获。它们不是有一部分为土拨鼠生长的吗？麦穗（拉丁文spica，古文作speca，语源spe是希望的意思），不仅是农夫的希望；它的核仁，或者说，谷物（granum，语源 gerendo是生产的意思）也不是它的生产之全部。那未，我们怎会歉收呢？难道我们不应该为败草的丰收而欢喜，因为它们的种子是鸟雀的粮食？大地的生产是否堆满了农夫的仓库，相对来说，这是小事。真正的农夫不必焦形于色，就像那些松鼠，根本是不关心今年的树林会不会生产栗子的，真正的农夫整天劳动，并不要求土地的生产品属于他所占有，在他的心里，他不仅应该贡献第一个果实，还应该献出他的最后一个果实。
