66 H O'E SE POKTEAITUEE. 



Haugh, Bosebank, Hall-dykes, than Smith's farm, Jones's 

 place, &c., the only way we have of distinguishing the most 

 beautiful places in the country. Should a person name a 

 little 'farm which he looks at with more fondness and pride 

 than does the owner of the estate of several thousand 

 acres, his aesthetic taste is laughed at, and he is ridiculed 

 by men who have not niany ideas above those of an Es- 

 quimaux, so far as the beautiful is concerned. I will 

 continue my ideal history of the breeding. The place is 

 no fiction, and I have admired it a thousand times, always 

 considering it the best natural farm I ever saw. The 

 present house, situated on the grandly wooded eminence, 

 is a large, massive stone building, with no pretensions to 

 taste. However, the arrangement and size of the rooms 

 are such as to be comfortable for the sheltering of a good 

 many people. It is in the form of an L, but unfortu- 

 nately the angle is on the back side towards the wood. 

 It is placed so near the eastern slope of the hill that all 

 those magnificent trees are in the rear, excepting some 

 of the finest that flank it on the north, forming a second 

 screen as an additional protection from the north wind, 

 which is more effectually shut out by the bluff" making an 

 abrupt bend to the east, running in that direction very 

 nearly to the eastern boundary. A few straggling black 

 locusts are the only trees in front, and the fine slope is 

 bare of everything save garden vegetables and current 

 bushes. The road is at the foot and winds round it, so 

 that to an observer, familiar with Western road-making, 

 it looks like a private one, all the others he has traveled 

 following the section lines over hill and dale. The sum- 

 mer has not alone been occupied by watching, feeding 

 and weaning colts, planting crops, and so on. The bare 

 walls have been hidden by a wide verandah on both the 

 eastern and southern sides. The roof has been carried 

 over it so that it projects two or three feet beyond the 



