252 Wisconsin State Horticultural Society. 



had many engagements to keep with favorite trees and plants. The 

 aroma of a pipe, a pile of whittlings on the hearth, a flower, a 

 bunch of grass, sticks, twigs or a crumpled leaf, which the owner 

 had unconsciously dropped, told the story that Thoreau so easily 

 read. 



As bread was to be the important article of food, Thoreau resolved 

 to try the making of various kinds. His first experience was with 

 hoe-cakes, baked upon a shingle, but that was wont to get smoked, 

 and have a piny flavor. Next he tried wheat bread with yeast; but 

 the yeast proved troublesome, and at last he went back to the prim- 

 itive days of unleavened bread, using a recipe Cato gave about 

 two centuries before Christ, which I will give: "Make kneaded 

 bread thus: wash your hands and trough well; put the meal into 

 the trough; add water gradually, and knead it thoroughly; when 

 you have kneaded it well, mould it, and bake it under a cover," 

 that is, a baking kettle. He says, " in cold weather it was no little 

 amusement to bake several small loaves of this in succession, tend- 

 ing and turning them as carefully as an Egyptian his hatching eggs. 

 They were a real cereal fruit which I ripened, and they had to my 

 senses a fragrance like that of other noble fruits which I kept in 

 as long as possible by wrapping them in cloths." 



For more than five years he maintained himself solely by the 

 help of his hands, and by working six weeks in the year, he could 

 meet all the expenses of living. Therefore, the whole of the win- 

 ter and the larger part of the summer time was his own, to be de- 

 voted to study, labor, rest and meditation. He says, " I was rich, 

 if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days, and I spent them 

 lavishly." He planted two and a half acres of his land to beans, a 

 small part to potatoes, peas, turnips and corn. He says, " the bean 

 field yielded me various lessons and results that could not have 

 been obtained from printed books. I became intimately acquainted 

 with my beans, planting, hoeing, picking over, and selling them, 

 which was the hardest of all;" and while cultivating the acquaint- 

 ance of his beans, he also made many other curious and interesting 

 acquaintances among a multitude of herbs and plants. 



Emerson says Thoreau was an industrious man, and setting like 

 all other highly organized men a high value on his time, he seemed 

 the only man of leisure in town; always ready for an excursion 

 that promised well, or for a conversation prolonged into late hours. 



