118 MY FARM. 



of the hill, great festoons cf vines, spotted with 

 purple clusters ; amidst the foliage, there gleams, 

 here and there, the broad hat of some vineyard 

 dresser (as in German pictures), and crimson kirtles 

 come and go, and songs flash into the summer still- 

 ness, and a soft purple haze wraps the scene, and 

 thickens in the hollows of the land, and swims 

 fathoms deep around the ruin 



" Square, what d'ye ask apiece for them suck- 

 ers ? " 



It is my neighbor, who has clambered up, holding 

 by the myrtle bushes, to buy a pig. 



The vexed question of the proper dressing 

 and tillage of the hillside, is still in reserve. I 

 resolved it in this wise : Of the rocks most con- 

 venient, and least available for fencing purposes, 

 I constructed an easy roadway, leading by grad- 

 ual inclination from top to bottom ; other stones 

 were laid up in a substantial wall, which sup- 

 plies the place of a staggering and weakly fence, 

 which every strong northwester prostrated ; still 

 others, of a size too small for any such purpose, were 

 buried in drains, which diverted the standing moist- 

 ure from one or two sedgy basins on the hill, and 

 discharged the flow upon the crown of a gravelly 

 slope. There, I have now the pleasure of seeing a 

 most luxuriant growth of white clover and red top. 



