pplied me with fuel for
a long time, and left small circles of virgin mould, easily
distinguishable through the summer by the greater luxuriance of the
beans there. The dead and for the most part unmerchantable wood behind
my house, and the driftwood from the pond, have supplied the remainder
of my fuel. I was obliged to hire a team and a man for the plowing,
though I held the plow myself. My farm outgoes for the first season
were, for implements, seed, work, etc., $14.72+. The seed corn was given
me. This never costs anything to speak of, unless you plant more than
enough. I got twelve bushels of beans, and eighteen bushels of potatoes,
beside 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............ 14.72+
-------
There are left.................. $ 8.71+

beside produce consumed and on hand at the time this estimate was made
of the value of $4.50--the amount on hand much more than balancing a
little grass which I did not raise. All things considered, that is,
considering the importance of a man's soul and of today, notwithstanding
the short time occupied by my experiment, nay, partly even because of
its transient character, I believe that that was doing better than any
farmer in Concord did that year.

The next year I did better still, for I spaded up all the land which I
required, about a third of an acre, and I learned from the experience
of both years, not being in the least awed by many celebrated works on
husbandry, Arthur Young among the rest, that if one would live simply
and eat only the crop which he raised, and raise no more than he ate,
and not exchange it for an insufficient quantity of more luxurious and
expensive things, he would need to cultivate only a few rods of ground,
and that it would be cheaper to spade up that than to use oxen to plow
it, and to select a fresh spot from time to time than to manure the old,
and he could do all his necessary farm work as it were with his left
hand at odd hours in the summer; and thus he would not be tied to an ox,
or horse, or cow, or pig, as at present. I desire to speak impartially
on this point, and as one not interested in the success or failure of
the present economical and social arrangements. I was more independent
than any farmer in Concord, for I was not