Consider the expressions we have about beans:
He doesn’t know beans!
She won’t amount to a hill of beans.
They’re full of beans.
Clearly, we don’t have a lot of respect for beans, and Thoreau is entirely playing with these sentiments. “But why should I raise them? Only Heaven knows.” If you can find the self-effacing humor in this chapter, it’s a sweet and funny read—“I was determined to know beans.”
He relates his hours of “curious labor” hoeing while acknowledging he didn’t amend the soil or follow accepted farming practices, creating a “half-cultivated field.” He even shares the criticism he overhears.
The chapter is laced with martial imagery—he goes to battle with weeds and woodchucks, and once the beans are harvested, they “go forward to meet new foes,” pointing to the eventual fate of a bean. There are occasional sounds of militia exercises in town which prompt jokes about it being safe enough to farm.
The chapter takes us deeper into the mythos of Walden, “It was no longer beans that I hoed, nor I that hoed beans.” The hawk circles overhead “in heaven’s eye,” and he finds ‘kindredship in nature.” His efforts are rewarded by discoveries of artifacts in the soil, which seem like a blessing on his efforts.
There is a precise account of his expenses and profit structurally connecting The Bean-Fields to Economy. He only raises beans for this one summer, so we have a clear conclusion to this experiment of being a farmer.
The finale is an elegant reflection on our choices of labor and other seeds we plant, “sincerity, truth, simplicity, faith, innocence, and the like.” Essentially asking, what kinds of seeds would we like him to plant? And for ourselves, what do we value enough to cultivate ourselves? Then, with typical Thoreauvian contrariness, he points toward the Latin tradition of sacred husbandry, implying that his bean endeavor is no less.
I think he resolves this seeming contradiction.
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.
In the end, this even includes weeds…and woodchucks.
A few historical notes:
1. Thoreau gathered over 900 Native American artifacts in his lifetime.
2. A Rans des Vaches is a Swiss song for calling cows.
3. You might find one expression troubling, that he “felt as if I could spit a Mexican with good relish.” While this is certainly a pun on the word relish, it also points to the Mexican-American War occurring during his stay at Walden. While we know Thoreau refused to pay his poll taxes to fund the war, he is occasionally a product of his times with what we consider insensitive comments. He is certainly sexist at times.
4. “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…” The Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras asked his students to not consume beans—you can imagine why. Beans were also used to tally votes.
5. “Our ambassadors should be instructed to send home such seeds as this.” Collecting rare seeds abroad was common practice at the time. Of course Thoreau is asking diplomats for seeds of virtue.
In this chapter, we are invited to consider our own place with nature and what “seeds” we choose to plant and cultivate.
Reference
Cramer, Jeffery. Walden, A Fully Annotated Edition. New Haven: Yale University Press. 2004.