................... $ 28.12+
Farm one year........................... 14.72+
Food eight months....................... 8.74
Clothing, etc., eight months............ 8.40-3/4
Oil, etc., eight months................. 2.00
-----------
In all............................ $ 61.99-3/4

I address myself now to those of my readers who have a living to get.
And to meet this I have for farm produce sold

$ 23.44
Earned by day-labor.................... 13.34
-------
In all............................ $ 36.78,

which subtracted from the sum of the outgoes leaves a balance of $25.21
3/4 on the one side--this being very nearly the means with which I
started, and the measure of expenses to be incurred--and on the
other, beside the leisure and independence and health thus secured, a
comfortable house for me as long as I choose to occupy it.

These statistics, however accidental and therefore uninstructive they
may appear, as they have a certain completeness, have a certain value
also. Nothing was given me of which I have not rendered some account.
It appears from the above estimate, that my food alone cost me in money
about twenty-seven cents a week. It was, for nearly two years after
this, rye and Indian meal without yeast, potatoes, rice, a very little
salt pork, molasses, and salt; and my drink, water. It was fit that I
should live on rice, mainly, who love so well the philosophy of India.
To meet the objections of some inveterate cavillers, I may as well
state, that if I dined out occasionally, as I always had done, and I
trust shall have opportunities to do again, it was frequently to the
detriment of my domestic arrangements. But the dining out, being, as
I have stated, a constant element, does not in the least affect a
comparative statement like this.

I learned from my two years' experience that it would cost incredibly
little trouble to obtain one's necessary food, even in this latitude;
that a man may use as simple a diet as the animals, and yet retain
health and strength. I have made a satisfactory dinner, satisfactory
on several accounts, simply off a dish of purslane (Portulaca oleracea)
which I gathered in my cornfield, boiled and salted. I give the Latin on
account of the savoriness of the trivial name. And pray what more can
a reasonable man desire