YANKEE FARMING.-NO. 1. 
29 
that they will deem their labor very slight indeed, 
compared with the benefits and pleasure resulting 
from fine crops of delicious grapes. 
We have growing under glass, about one hundred 
and thirty foreign varieties, and when they sha]l all 
have fruited, we maybe able to present some variety 
eminently adapted for open culture. With our 
present experience, however, 1 think that the best 
five or six varieties for open culture at the South, 
are the black Hamburg, golden Chasselas, white 
Sweetwater, Zinfindel, and the Frontignans. The 
two former are specially adapted to open culture 
as the black Hamburg ripens well against walls in 
the south of England, and the golden Chasselas 
in the vicinity of Paris. The Frontignans, I have 
seen growing very luxuriantly in the south of 
France, near Montpellier and Avignon, in some 
apparently low localities. 
I have hastily thrown together these hints, with 
the hope that some of your Southern readers may 
be induced to take up the subject. My opinions of 
the cause of rot and mildew may be deemed mere 
speculation ; but I think that they are in some men- 
sure warranted by familiar facts. Should any one 
be induced to make any experiments in grape cul¬ 
ture, 1 hope the results may be communicated to the 
public through your pages. 
S. B. Parsons. 
Flushing , Long Island. 
YANKEE FARMING.—No. 1. 
Good people all of every sort, 
Give ear unto my song; 
And if you find it wondrous short, 
It cannot hold you long.— Goldsmith. 
What I am and what I propose .—I was born, 
reared, and still reside in A-gok-ne-quaw, one of the 
oldest towns in New England. Its boundaries are 
of unusual extent, embracing a great variety of soil, 
which being in the occupancy of persons of widely 
different minds and degrees of education, nearly 
every system of culture is practised here which 
may be found in the Northern States. This being 
the case, it has often occurred to me, that an exact 
account of the farming operations carried on at 
Agoknequaw—whether good, bad, or indifferent—if 
properly detailed, would prove no less interesting 
than instructive to the readers of the Agriculturist. 
Being the son of a plain, hard-working farmer, and 
brought up to daily toil myself, and having receiv¬ 
ed no other education than the limited one acquired 
during the winter months at a common district 
school, and the occasional perusal of a book drawn 
from the venerable old town library, with two or 
three agricultural periodicals for the last few years, 
and some modern elementary agricultural works, 
I feel poorly qualified to undertake the task ; but 
as I have frequently unsuccessfully endeavored to 
get those of superior minds and much better edu¬ 
cated than myself to do it, I have at length lost all 
patience with them, and now make bold to hazard 
the attempt, trusting that the kindness of your 
readers will pardon all my deficiencies in carrying 
it into effect. 
Description of A-gok-ne-quaw .—It is bounded on 
the east by the Neantik, a clear, broad, rapid river ; 
on the south by an estuary of the sea, called Mo- 
necana ; and on the west and north by the broken 
hills of Awashonk, the highest peaks of which 
may very properly be termed mountains. Quite a 
number of little streams spring from this range of 
hills, and take their sinuous course in different 
directions through the town, furnishing abundance 
of pure water to every farm around. Stretching 
along the Neantik, are wide intervals of a light, 
sandy soil, broken occasionally by rocky promon¬ 
tories ; bordering the Mohecana, is a narrow strip 
of salt marsh ; the valleys through which meander 
the small streams, with the exceptions of the 
boggy land, may be classed amongst the most fertile 
of meadows, arid are well stored with rich peat and 
muck ; the uplands generally are of a light gravel, 
varying to stiff clay, interspersed with a few cold 
springy hollows; -while the hills are very stony, 
with ledges of hard shelly rock occasionally crop¬ 
ping out abruptly at the sides, and crowning with 
huge precipices the high mountain tops. Thus 
much for a preface and general description—now 
for particulars; and in giving these, in order to 
fully carry out my plan, it will be necessary for 
me to speak of persons as well as things. 
Uncle Sim. —As I have a good deal to say about 
him, I shall first introduce to your readers’ acquain¬ 
tance, my nearest neighbor, Mr. Simeon Doolittle, 
whom we familiarly call “ Uncle Sim.” He stands 
full six feet high without his stockings ; has sandy 
hair; small blue eyes, one of which he has the 
habit of cocking up very oddly when looking with 
particular earnestness ; a florid complexion: promi¬ 
nent, rotund belly ; and weighs about two hundred 
and seven pounds. He is industrious, economical, 
and kind hearted ; tells a good story, and is fond 
of a joke, provided he himself is not the sul> 
ject of it; but he is careless in much of his 
farm management; intensely prejudiced and obsti¬ 
nate ; and occasionally is very irascible, especially 
when he has taken a little too much hard cider. 
Still he may be called a good neighbor; and though 
we sometimes have a little sparring, which I hon¬ 
estly wish could be avoided, yet upon the whole, 
we manage to get along pretty comfortably 
together. Notwithstanding he is some twenty 
years my senior, he always treats me with defer¬ 
ence and attention ; rather courts my society, and 
many is the social chat we have when we meet in 
the field, or interchange visits at each other’s houses 
during the long winter evenings, regaling our farm¬ 
ing talk over a bountiful dish of apples and 
nuts. 
His Farm. —This is of moderate size, though of 
a mixed character ; embracing poor and rich 
meadow, some good upland, with an inconsidera¬ 
ble quantity of hill. Of course his crops are vari¬ 
ous, but of the management of them hereafter. 
His Young Stock —Among other products of his 
farm, Uncle Sim cuts a considerable quantity of 
bog meadow hay, a poor, watery sort of grass, 
which he stacks upon his upland, and fodders out 
upon the ground to a stock of young cattle, which 
have no better shelter all winter, than they can 
find under the lee side of the fence which surrounds 
the stacks. The result is, although they go into 
winter quarters in tolerable condition, they come 
out miserably poor, requiring half the summer to 
recruit; and I doubt whether they gain an ounce 
per head from the middle of November to the first 
