THE PALO ALTO FARM. 89 



Eange of Mountains, the ocean being only thirty-five 

 miles distant. 



I came to Palo Alto when it was new and crude — 

 the first of the tracts that form the Palo Alto of to-day 

 ■only having been purchased in 1876 — and from that 

 day to this the work of improving and building has 

 never ceased, until little either in the way of useful- 

 ness or ornamentation seems to be desired. AYhile he 

 who has an eye to the practical alone can see at Palo 

 Alto every facility and every improvement for the 

 accomplishment of practical ends, the lover of nature's 

 beauties can breathe the purest air, enjoy the brightest 

 sunlight and feast his eyes on the greenest of land- 

 scapes beautified with trees and shrubbery from every 

 clime. 



When I beo^an work at the new farm the track was 

 just being built, new buildings were hardiv yet 

 planned, there was only about a dozen men employed 

 on the farm, and the stud consisted of Electioneer, 

 Gen. Benton, old Mohawk Chief and about twenty to 

 twenty-five brood-mares. I little thought that this 

 begfinnino: would even, under the stimulus of Governor 

 Stanford's limitless enterprise and capital, grow into 

 the most extensive trotting-horse breeding and training 

 establishment in the world. Speaking of its dimen- 

 sions, and of the scale on which the breeding and 

 training of horses is conducted here, a writer recently 

 said : 



" The writer, who is accustomed to take the measure 

 of a stock-farm in a day and review it with a fair 

 degree of comprehensiveness in a single article, finds 

 himself in deep water at Palo Alto. My first impres- 



