162 HOESE POKTRAITUKE. 



spirit was freed from its gross material covering, rambling 

 un trammeled through, every clime, and witnessing won- 

 drous things, the recollections of which have never been 

 effaced. These fantasies now make up a definite period 

 of my existence. It requires a strong effort of the memory 

 to separate the ideal from the actual, and I have often 

 detected myself recounting some adventure which was a 

 mixture of both lives. 



I remark this, to account for my talking about the breed- 

 ing-farm as if it were a thing tangible and real, with the 

 brood mares, colts, fields, paddocks, and buildings, just as 

 I have described them. When I return to Iowa, there 

 will be times when I shall walk over the pasture field on 

 my own little farm, saunter along past the church and 

 school-house, and be disappointed, in climbing the little 

 elevation between these and the stone-house, not to see 

 the colts gamboling in the field, or the prairie rose and 

 woodbine draping the house, relieved now by nothing 

 save the shade of the oaks in the background. 



The field is slightly undulating, and of sufficient extent 

 to get any shape we may desire the track to be. We will 

 adopt the one you recommend, two parallel sides of a 

 quarter of a mile each, joined with semicircles of the same 

 length. The soil is just what is best adapted for the pur- 

 pose, a dark sandy loam, the proportion of sand being 

 small. The richness of it is attested by the corn growing 

 so high that there are stalks where the ear is almost out 

 of a man's reach, with the tassels waving fifteen feet above 

 the ground. We commence by plowing deeply, either 

 using a double Michigan plow drawn by four horses, or 

 make two teams follow each other in the same furrow. 

 The advantage of deep plowing, is to get a stratum of this 

 easily pulverized soil that can be leveled without leaving 

 hard places near the surface, causing inequalities that will 

 be hard to get rid of. The plowing accomplished, the 



