30 
YANKEE FARMING. —-NO. 1. 
of May, the usual foddering time for stock among 
us in this latitude. 
His Steers —Among his young stock, are quite a 
number of steers, which he rears and breaks to the 
yoke ; doing what work he wants with them, and 
then turns off for whatever he can get, the spring 
they come three years old. 1 have often endeavored 
to persuade Uncle Sim, that the way he manages 
his young stock, there could be no profit in raising 
it; that the work he got out of his ill fed, young 
things, was more trouble to him than it was worth ; 
and that I would rather have one pair of strong, 
well fed cattle, than the whole of them. But my 
opinion was all in vain to him, and he ever com¬ 
batted it with great obstinacy, till the following in¬ 
cident somewhat staggered his faith in his own 
management. 
How his Team of Steers , got stuck with a Log in the 
Snow. —Crossing my fields one clear, cold winter 
morning, just after a deep fall of snow, I heard a 
terrible hul-la-ba-loo, in a chorus of three voices, 
rising up from a hollow between some woodland 
and a gentle hill on my neighbor’s premises, of 
“ whoa, haw here, Bright—gee up there, Buck and 
Golden, come all on ye together now,” followed by 
the peculiar “ w-h-r-r-r,” of our Yankee teamsters, 
mingled with the crack of whips, and now and 
then a shrill yell, which almost set my hair on end. 
Curiosity prompted me to run instantly to the top of 
the hill, to see what was the matter, wdien J found 
Uncle Sim, up to his knees in a stout pair of cow 
hide boots, drawn over his butternut colored cloth 
browsers, vest and coat to match, a linsey-woolsey 
frock over all, his head covered in a racoon fur 
cap, with the tail wagging gaily down over his 
shoulders, and flourishing a long whip vririch he 
applied without stint to his team, of seven yoke 
of steers, and an old mare for a leader, endeavoring 
with the aid of a couple of lads, equally well 
armed, to start a log which he had cut that morn¬ 
ing and loaded on a bob sled. He had got thus far 
with it on his way to the saw mill, when at 
the first rise of ground, it unluckily stuck in 
the snow, and not another inch could they make 
it budge, notwithstanding all the joint whipping 
and shouting they had gone through with, in 
order to infuse more strength into the team. In 
fact, Uncle Sim’s efforts to get his miserable cattle 
to move the log, by this time had nearly exhausted 
himself; for as I came up he paused in his exer¬ 
tions, planted his whipstalk upright in the snow, 
took off his fur cap, and began wiping the dripping 
perspiration from his brow with the sleeve of his 
frock, seeming to be in great trouble and per¬ 
plexity. 
Our Conversation thereupon , with Hints on Stock 
Management and Feeding. —“ Top of the morning 
to you, Uncle Sim,” said I, in a somewhat jeering 
tone, although I felt sorry for him to the very 
bottom of my heart; “ now you see what I have so 
often told you, all this comes from keeping too 
much stock and feeding it so poorly. If”—“ Now 
just stop will ye, and look a here, Serjeant,” he re¬ 
plied somewhat deprecatingly, for I beg your readers 
to understand, that I have the honor of holding an 
an orderly’s warrant, in the second company of our 
town militia; “there grows the grass in the bog 
meadow, don’t you see, and I must cut it, and when 
stacked you know as well as I does, that it must 
be eat; wall, the old mare and colts won’t touch 
it, nor the sheep nother, it dries up the cows from 
their milk, and as nothin’ else will, the steers must." 
These last words he pronounced very emphatically, 
and then slapped his right thigh with his stout 
dexter, gave a sort of grunting whistle, by wmy of 
taking breath, and then looked up with a signifi¬ 
cant cock of the eye, as much as to say, “ there, 
if that ain’t a settler, then I don’t know what is.” 
“ As to cutting and stacking the bog grass,” I re¬ 
plied, “ there is no objection, though you need not 
have bog grass at all, if you would manage your 
meadows as I want to have you read they do in 
England; but of this hereafter. What I have so 
often contended for is, that you should run out a 
couple of rough sheds from the southeast and 
southwest corner of your big barn, thus enclosing 
an ample sunny yard well protected from the winds. 
Under these, your young stock would find comforta¬ 
ble shelter from storms and cold winds, then you 
could stack youi hay close by, get one of the new 
fashioned, quick working hay cutters, and cut it up 
fine with your corn stalks, w T hich nearly all go to 
waste now, wet these up and mix a little bran or 
meal with them, and then feed out bountifully in 
troughs, and you will get a hundred pounds’ growth 
on the steers, where you don’t get an ounce now; 
and they will be much stronger for their winters’ 
work. You will also make much more manure 
than you now do ; and mixed up with other matters 
in the yard, it will be more valuable than that left 
on the uplands round the stacks, to waste away in 
every rain, wind, and sun. Oh, you little know 
what a saving and comfort it would be all round. 
But here comes Major Goodell, quite easily along the 
road now, Uncle Sim, with his famous, smart yoke 
of oxen, and a log on his sled larger than 
yours, by a quarter ; so I will just invite him to stop 
a minute, and give you a lift. If his cattle don’t 
start your log all alone, and take it to the top of the 
hill”—“ If they can,” said he, rather snappishly, 
“ then I’ll acknowledge beat for once in my life . 
and what’s more, I’ll give my ox goad here, with the 
log, new woodchuck lash at the eend on’t, into 
the bargain ; and it cost me three good night’s work 
to braid it. No, no ; they can’t do no sich a thing,” 
continued he, shaking his head and stamping vio¬ 
lently in the snow. 
A Word about Titles and Major Goodell. —Our 
friend just spoken of, received his title from being 
Drum Major of our county regiment of militia; 
for you must know that we are very particular in 
New England, to give every man his title, and if 
he has none in his own right, by way of keeping 
him from being odd , we take care to dub him one. 
To be plain Mister , don’t go do down in this country. 
A man might as well be nobody; he must be dis¬ 
tinguished somehow; it is his duty in this great, 
free, and enlightened republic of ours. I see you 
sneer a little now, Mr. Editor ; but suppose the per¬ 
son before us, did get his title by drumming , has 
not many a man drummed himself up one before, 
and not half so/on est either % Please to answer. But 
to the Major. He is a short, stubbed, little man, 
and shrewed ai d active ; and as he steps along with 
a high military air, he carries his head rather fiercely 
and well up oil the top of his back, as if he had 
