<P> Baker Farm: While on an afternoon ramble in the woods, Thoreau gets caught in a rainstorm and takes shelter in the dirty, dismal hut of John Field, a penniless but hard - working Irish farmhand, and his wife and children . Thoreau urges Field to live a simple but independent and fulfilling life in the woods, thereby freeing himself of employers and creditors . But the Irishman won't give up his aspirations of luxury and the quest for the American dream . </P> <P> Higher Laws: Thoreau discusses whether hunting wild animals and eating meat is necessary . He concludes that the primitive, carnal sensuality of humans drives them to kill and eat animals, and that a person who transcends this propensity is superior to those who cannot . (Thoreau eats fish and occasionally salt pork and woodchuck .) In addition to vegetarianism, he lauds chastity, work, and teetotalism . He also recognizes that Native Americans need to hunt and kill moose for survival in "The Maine Woods", and eats moose on a trip to Maine while he was living at Walden . Here is a list of the laws that he mentions: </P> <Ul> <Li> One must love that of the wild just as much as one loves that of the good . </Li> <Li> What men already know instinctively is true humanity . </Li> <Li> The hunter is the greatest friend of the animal which is hunted . </Li> <Li> No human older than an adolescent would wantonly murder any creature which reveres its own life as much as the killer . </Li> <Li> If the day and the night make one joyful, one is successful . </Li> <Li> The highest form of self - restraint is when one can subsist not on other animals, but of plants and crops cultivated from the earth . </Li> </Ul> <Li> One must love that of the wild just as much as one loves that of the good . </Li>

Henry david thoreau i went to the woods poem