Chapter 61 Seed Beans - 4

Such was the result of my bean-growing experience: about the first of June, sowing the little white seeds, three feet by eighteen inches apart, in rows, picking the fresh, round, No adulterated seeds.Pay attention to the insects, and then replant the seedlings in the positions where no seedlings have emerged.And watch out for the woodchucks, if that field is exposed, they'll eat up the young leaves that are just growing; and, after the tender tendrils have spread out, they'll still notice, and they'll sit upright , like a squirrel, nibbles off the buds along with the first pods.It is especially important that you harvest as early as possible if you want it to be protected from frost, and to sell it easily; and it will save you much loss.

I also gained the following richer experience: I said to myself, next summer, instead of spending so much labor in planting beans and corn, I will plant seeds like honesty, truth, simplicity, faith , naive, etc., if these seeds are not lost, see if they can grow on this land, and can sustain my life with less labor and fertilizer, because the land must not be exhausted enough to plant these thing.well!I have said these words to myself, but now that another summer has passed, and one after another, I am compelled to tell you, reader, that the seeds I have planted, if of these virtues, Then they are all eaten by insects, or they have lost their vitality, and no seedlings have grown.Men are usually only as brave or as cowardly as their ancestors.The corn and beans that this generation grows every year must be the same as the Indians planted centuries ago, which they taught the first settlers, as if they were destined to be so, and it was difficult to change.I was also amazed the other day to see an old man who had dug a hole at least seventieth times with a hoe and wasn't going to lie in it himself.Why shouldn't a New Englander try a new venture, and value his corn, his potatoes, his hay, and his orchard,--and plant something else?Why do we care so much about the seeds of beans and not at all about the new generation of human beings?The virtues which I have spoken of, which we place above other products, if we meet a man and see in him the virtues which I have spoken of, the virtues which are scattered in the air have taken root and grown in him. , then we should really be satisfied and happy.Here comes such an elusive and ineffable quality, such as truth or justice, though in small quantities, though still a new breed, and yet it comes along the high road.Our ambassadors should receive some instructions to select good varieties and send them back to China, and then our Congress will distribute them to all parts of the country for planting.We should not treat sincerity hypocritically.If the essence of nobility and friendship were ours, we should never allow our baseness to deceive, insult, and repel each other.Nor should we meet in a hurry.Most of them I haven't met at all, it seems like they don't have time, they're too busy with their beans.Let us not associate with such a busy man who leans between his work on a hoe or a shovel as if on a stick, not like a fungus, but only partly raised from the earth, not quite Straight, like a swallow that stops and walks on the ground,—

"His wings spread now and then as he spoke, Like to fly, but hang down again,—" So we thought we might be talking to an angel.Bread may not always nourish us; but it is always good for us, taking the stiffness out of our joints, making us supple and lively, and even when we don't know what ails us, it frees us from the ailments of nature and man. Find mercy and enjoy any joy pure and intense. Ancient poems and myths have at least hinted that farming was once a sacred art, but we are in a hurry and messy, and our goal is only a large field and a bumper harvest.We have no festival days, no ceremonies, no processions, not even cattle meetings and thanksgivings, which the farmer uses to signify the sacredness of his profession, or to trace the sacred origin of farming. of.Now it's pay and a good meal that attracts them.Now he sacrificed not to Ceres, not to Joseph, but to the evil god Plutus.By avarice, selfishness, and a ignominious habit from which none of us can escape, the land is regarded as property, or the chief means of acquiring property, the landscape is spoiled, farming is as inferior as we are, and the peasant lives the worst. life of humiliation.He knows nature as a robber knows.Cato said that the interests of agriculture are particularly pious and upright (maximeque pius quaestus), and according to Varo, the ancient Romans "called the Mother of Earth and Ceres by the same name, and they believed that those who cultivated the land lived as one. Pious and useful life, they alone are the remnants of Saturn".

We often forget that the sun shines as equally on our plowed fields as on meadows and forests.They both reflect and absorb its light, the former being only a small part of the picture it sees every day.To it the earth is cultivated like a garden.Therefore, we accept its light and heat, as well as its trust and generosity.I value the seeds of beans, so what if I get harvested in the autumn fields?I have looked so long at the broad field, and the vast field does not regard me as the chief cultivator, and turns away from me to the more friendly influences which water it and make it green.The fruits of the beans are not harvested by me.Aren't they partly grown for groundhogs?The ear of wheat (Latin spica, ancient speca, etymology spe means hope) is not only the hope of the farmer; its kernel, or grain (granum, etymology gerendo means production) is not the source of its production. all.Then, how can we fail the harvest?Should we not rejoice at the harvest of weeds, whose seeds are food for the birds?Whether or not the produce of the earth fills the farmer's storehouse is a comparatively insignificant matter.A real farmer doesn't have to worry about it, just like those squirrels who don't care whether the forest will produce chestnuts this year. A real farmer works all day long and doesn't require the land's products to be his own. , he should not only contribute his first fruit, but also his last fruit.