📝 您未登录，登录后完成练习可保存成绩、查看最佳记录。
总字符
0
正确字符
0
错误字符
0
错误率
0.00%
耗时(秒)
0
速度 WPM
0
0 / 42
1Such is the universal law, which no man can ever outwit, and with regard to the railroad even we may say it is as broad
2as it is long. To make a railroad round the world available to all mankind is equivalent to grading the whole surface of
3the planet. Men have an indistinct notion that if they keep up this activity of joint stocks and spades long enough all
4will at length ride somewhere, in next to no time, and for nothing; but though a crowd rushes to the depot, and the
5conductor shouts "All aboard!" when the smoke is blown away and the vapor condensed, it will be perceived that a few are
6riding, but the rest are run over,--and it will be called, and will be, "A melancholy accident." No doubt they can ride
7at last who shall have earned their fare, that is, if they survive so long, but they will probably have lost their
8elasticity and desire to travel by that time. This spending of the best part of one's life earning money in order to
9enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it, reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to
10make a fortune first, in order that he might return to England and live the life of a poet. He should have gone up
11garret at once. "What!" exclaim a million Irishmen starting up from all the shanties in the land, "is not this railroad
12which we have built a good thing?" Yes, I answer, comparatively good, that is, you might have done worse; but I wish, as
13you are brothers of mine, that you could have spent your time better than digging in this dirt. Before I finished my
14house, wishing to earn ten or twelve dollars by some honest and agreeable method, in order to meet my unusual expenses,
15I planted about two acres and a half of light and sandy soil near it chiefly with beans, but also a small part with
16potatoes, corn, peas, and turnips. The whole lot contains eleven acres, mostly growing up to pines and hickories, and
17was sold the preceding season for eight dollars and eight cents an acre. One farmer said that it was "good for nothing
18but to raise cheeping squirrels on." I put no manure whatever on this land, not being the owner, but merely a squatter,
19and not expecting to cultivate so much again, and I did not quite hoe it all once. I got out several cords of stumps in
20ploughing, which supplied me with fuel for a long time, and left small circles of virgin mould, easily distinguishable
21through the summer by the greater luxuriance of the beans there. The dead and for the most part unmerchantable wood
22behind my house, and the driftwood from the pond, have supplied the remainder of my fuel. I was obliged to hire a team
23and a man for the ploughing, though I held the plough myself. My farm outgoes for the first season were, for implements,
24seed, work, &c., $14.72½. The seed corn was given me. This never costs anything to speak of, unless you plant more than
25enough. I got twelve bushels of beans, and eighteen bushels of potatoes, beside some peas and sweet corn. The yellow
26corn and turnips were too late to come to any thing. My whole income from the farm was $ 23.44 Deducting the
27outgoes,........... 14.72½ -------- There are left,................. $ 8.71½, beside produce consumed and on hand at the
28time this estimate was made of the value of $4.50,--the amount on hand much more than balancing a little grass which I
29did not raise. All things considered, that is, considering the importance of a man's soul and of to-day, notwithstanding
30the short time occupied by my experiment, nay, partly even because of its transient character, I believe that that was
31doing better than any farmer in Concord did that year. The next year I did better still, for I spaded up all the land
32which I required, about a third of an acre, and I learned from the experience of both years, not being in the least awed
33by many celebrated works on husbandry, Arthur Young among the rest, that if one would live simply and eat only the crop
34which he raised, and raise no more than he ate, and not exchange it for an insufficient quantity of more luxurious and
35expensive things, he would need to cultivate only a few rods of ground, and that it would be cheaper to spade up that
36than to use oxen to plough it, and to select a fresh spot from time to time than to manure the old, and he could do all
37his necessary farm work as it were with his left hand at odd hours in the summer; and thus he would not be tied to an
38ox, or horse, or cow, or pig, as at present. I desire to speak impartially on this point, and as one not interested in
39the success or failure of the present economical and social arrangements. I was more independent than any farmer in
40Concord, for I was not anchored to a house or farm, but could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very crooked one,
41every moment. Beside being better off than they already, if my house had been burned or my crops had failed, I should
42have been nearly as well off as before.
🎉 全部完成！共 42 行