serious cultivation. Beyond these homes we
followed a well-gravelled road leading directly west. This road is
bordered by small farms, most of them given over to dairying interests.

Presently I called Polly's attention to the fact that the few apple
trees we saw were healthy and well grown, though quite independent of
the farmer's or the pruner's care. This thrifty condition of unkept
apple orchards delighted me. I intended to make apple-growing a
prominent feature in my experiment, and I reasoned that if these trees
did fairly well without cultivation or care, others would do excellently
well with both.

As we approached the second section line and climbed a rather steep
hill, we got the first glimpse of our possession. At the bottom of the
western slope of this hill we could see the crossing of the
north-and-south road, which we knew to be the east boundary of our land;
while, stretching straight away before us until lost in the distant
wood, lay the well-kept road which for a good mile was our southern
boundary. Descending the hill, we stopped at the crossing of the roads
to take in the outline of the farm from this southeast corner. The
north-and-south road ran level for 150 yards, gradually rose for the
next 250, and then continued nearly level for a mile or more. We saw
what Jane Austen calls "a happy fall of land," with a southern exposure,
which included about two-thirds of the southeast forty, and high land
beyond for the balance of this forty and the forty lying north of it.
There was an irregular fringe of forest trees on this southern slope,
especially well defined along the eastern border. I saw that Polly was
pleased with the view.

"We must enter the home lot from this level at the foot of the hill,"
said she, "wind gracefully through the timber, and come out near those
four large trees on the very highest ground. That will be effective and
easily managed, and will give me a chance at landscape gardening, which
I am just aching to try."

"All right," said I, "you shall have a free hand. Let's drive around the
boundaries of our land and behold its magnitude before we make other
plans."

We drove westward, my eyes intent upon the fields, the fences, the
crops, and everything that pertained to the place. I had waited so many
years for the sense of ownership of land that I could hardly realize
that this was not another dream from which I would soon be awakened by
something real. I noticed that the land