The Root Cellar

I Dug My Cellar in the Side of a Hill Sloping to the South, Where a Woodchuck had Formerly Dug his Burrow, Down Through Sumach and Blackberry Roots and the Lowest Stain Of Vegetation, Six Feet Square by Seven Deep, To a Fine Sand Where Potatoes Would Not Freeze in Any Winter… I Took Particular Pleasure in this Breaking of Ground.

—Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854