Henry David Thoreau: Walden

1. Economy (continued)

By surveying, carpentry, and day-labor of various other kinds in the village in the meanwhile, for I have as many trades as fingers, I had earned $13.34. The expense of food for eight months, namely, from July 4th to March 1st, the time when these estimates were made, though I lived there more than two years -- not counting potatoes, a little green corn, and some peas, which I had raised, nor considering the value of what was on hand at the last date -- was

     Rice .................... $ 1.73 1/2
     Molasses .................  1.73     Cheapest form of the
                                          saccharine.
     Rye meal .................  1.04 3/4
     Indian meal ..............  0.99 3/4  Cheaper than rye.
     Pork .....................  0.22
     All experiments which failed:
     Flour ....................  0.88  Costs more than Indian meal,
                                       both money and trouble.
     Sugar ....................  0.80
     Lard .....................  0.65
     Apples ...................  0.25
     Dried apple ..............  0.22
     Sweet potatoes ...........  0.10
     One pumpkin ..............  0.06
     One watermelon ...........  0.02
     Salt .....................  0.03

Yes, I did eat $8.74, all told; but I should not thus unblushingly publish my guilt, if I did not know that most of my readers were equally guilty with myself, and that their deeds would look no better in print. The next year I sometimes caught a mess of fish for my dinner, and once I went so far as to slaughter a woodchuck which ravaged my bean-field -- effect his transmigration, as a Tartar would say -- and devour him, partly for experiment's sake; but though it afforded me a momentary enjoyment, notwithstanding a musky flavor, I saw that the longest use would not make that a good practice, however it might seem to have your woodchucks ready dressed by the village butcher.

Clothing and some incidental expenses within the same dates, though little can be inferred from this item, amounted to

                                             $ 8.40-3/4
     Oil and some household utensils ........  2.00

So that all the pecuniary outgoes, excepting for washing and mending, which for the most part were done out of the house, and their bills have not yet been received -- and these are all and more than all the ways by which money necessarily goes out in this part of the world -- were