A principle activity of the narrator was tending his bean-field. It was a large one, "the length of whose rows, added together, was seven miles," and it provided him with food and a source of cash—beans and other vegetables gave him a profit of $8.71½. Early each morning, he attacked the weeds with his hoe, examined the arrowheads and bits of pottery he turned up, and—most important of all—enjoyed his work. For it was more than just work; it was an opportunity to experience prolonged close contact with nature. Here was yet another chance to enjoy life to the fullest, and the narrator sharply criticizes those farmers who till the soil only for a financial gain. The narrator recalls that "husbandry was once a sacred art," an activity of genuine spiritual value. His is, and will continue to be, a more valuable crop than that which fills barns. His experience has taught him that the "true husbandman," the man who approaches nature with a spiritual harvest in mind, "will cease from anxiety." Fulfillment, contentment, and tranquility are the real produce that the narrator reaped from his bean-field.
