Richard Johnson

Questions over Bean Field and Village

Name Kevin Dual

"The Bean Field"

1. What does Thoreau mean by his famous pun, "I was determined to know beans"?
What was the practical value of his experience growing beans as a cash crop? (He sold
them to get rice.) What was the symbolic value?

I assume Thoreau simply wanted to learn exactly how much work would be necessary to
sustain his lifestyle and, more specifically, if the rice that he could buy with the money would
be worth the amount of effort he would have to put into raising the beans, or if it would be
better to just do without rice. After reading the following, it seems to me that he decided that
the reward wasn't worth the work.

"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." Although Thoreau did mention
that he would never again work so hard to raise beans or corn, he did not mention how he
intends to earn his spending money in the future, or if he intends to give up all necessities
which he cannot raise directly from the land with his own two hands.

2. What lesson in "ecology" (the word had not yet been invented in Thoreau's day)
does the bean field teach Thoreau?

Thoreau observed that the wild nature of the land relented against his attempts to cultivate
and tame it. However, he also theorized that, despite the wild nature of the land, it should
produce enough to sustain him with much less effort than what he put forth that summer. In
fact, he pondered the idea that the field could produce far more than what he personally
planted in the form of all the native plant life that grew there before he interfered. That native
plant life, of course, was food and home to many other forms of life before Thoreau moved it
aside to make way for his beans and corn.

"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."
He also gave much thought to the fact that he really had no right to decide what should and
should not be allowed to grow on the land and that the other animals, plants, and even
incests had as much right to the produce of that land as he did. Ideally, if he could plant his
beans and corn and allow them to intermingle with other native plants, perhaps he could get
what he needed from the land while also allowing the native wildlife to sustain itself on the
same land.

"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."

"The Village"

1. Thoreau describes the village of Concord as "a great news room." Given his
comments on the next couple of pages, how much news does Thoreau seem to think
we need?

Thoreau doesn't seem to think he needs any news at all. He simply visits the town out of
curiosity in the same way that he visits the prairie dogs in order to observe their behavior.

"As I walked in the woods to see the birds and squirrels, so I walked in the village to see the
men and boys; instead of the wind among the pines I heard the carts rattle. In one direction
from my house there was a colony of muskrats in the river meadows; under the grove of elms
and buttonwoods in the other horizon was a village of busy men, as curious to me as if they
had been prairie dogs, each sitting at the mouth of its burrow, or running over to a neighbor’s
to gossip. I went there frequently to observe their habits."

He does, however, observe that most people seem to have an unquenchable thirst for news
and gossip- something he obviously had very little taste for. He demonstrates his distaste for
gossiping and other common social interactions several times in the text.

"...the houses were so arranged as to make the most of mankind, in lanes and fronting one
another, so that every traveller had to run the gantlet, and every man, woman, and child might
get a lick at him."
"Besides, there was a still more terrible standing invitation to call at every one of these
houses, and company expected about these times. For the most part I escaped wonderfully
from these dangers..."
Although Thoreau specifically mentioned that he enjoyed observing the behavior of the
townsfolk, clearly he did not enjoy the obligation to participate.

2. In the last paragraph of this chapter Thoreau comments on his relation to

government through a brief mention of his famous night in jail and through his loss of
a book apparently stolen from his cabin (he later discovered that the Canadian
woodchopper had it). What do these two incidents seem to suggest about how much
government is necessary? Based on his comments, which (if any) political party do
you think Thoreau would favor today? Explain why.

Thoreau specifically wrote that the only people that ever gave him any trouble were state
officials. Despite the fact that he did not lock his cabin and made very little effort to secure his
belongings or deter intruders, he experienced surprisingly little inconvenience due to invasion
or theft. It was his belief that due to his extremely simple lifestyle, it was nearly impossible for
anyone to take away anything of true value to him. That is to say that the things that he truly
valued were things that could not be taken away.

3. In contrast to the busy-ness of the village, Thoreau recounts the dreamy

peacefulness of feeling his way to the cabin at night in the dark. He also tells of how
less experienced townsmen who found themselves in the woods at night might easily
get lost. To Thoreau, however, getting lost was not a bad thing, because "Not till we are
lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves."
What shift in our usual priorities does this comment suggest? Give examples.

As we read and discussed Alexis de Tocqueville's writing about why Americans are often
so restless, it would seem that most people's relentless and usually futile search for
happiness is often actually the cause of the unhappiness. Therefor it would follow that if a
person could stop running in circles and make a real, deep analysis of what they really need
to be happy and what things they have been seeking that are actually quite unnecessary, they
might find that all they need to be truly happy is to give up the pursuit or "lose the world". By
doing this, they would most likely learn more about themselves and the true nature of
happiness than would have otherwise been possible; they might "begin to find their self".