It did not fail. In October twenty acres of corn, laboriously planted and manured with shads in the Indian manner, ripened beautifully. Describing this bounty, Winslow religiously acknowledged in Puritan fashion that “our corn [grain] did prove well, and, God be praised, we had a good increase of Indian corn....” Thus, the corn yield was unexpectedly high. Each Pilgrim could look forward to two pounds of corn meal every day. It might have seemed appropriate for the Pilgrims to formalize their thanks to God with a solemn day of thanksgiving. Instead, they opted for an older mode of thanksgiving known as Harvest Home. Most of them as boys had experienced the secular revelry of Harvest Home, when, after the main grain crop was ingathered, it was cakes and ale and hang the cost. Earlier in the sixteenth century it had been so rowdy during harvest time that Henry VIII had attacked the numerous feasts that prevented farmers from “taking the opportunity of good and serene weather offered upon the same in time of harvest.” So by the late 1500s the holiday was begun only after the harvest was safely home. Then came day after day of revelry, sports and feasts. As Thomas Tusser, the Elizabethan farmer-poet, described it: In Harvest-time, harvest folk servants and all, Should make all together good cheer in the hall, And fill the black bowl of blyth to their song, And let them be merry, all harvest-time long. Why the Pilgrims selected Harvest Home over a solemn day of thanksgiving is not clear. Perhaps, after their long urban exile in Leyden, Holland, they needed to reassure themselves that they were still capable farmers. Harvest Home, the most important of the rural festivals, was a natural symbol of their success.