h ravines communicating with the lake.

There is a beautiful level tract of land, with only here and there a
solitary oak growing upon it, or a few stately pines; it is commonly
called the "upper Race-course," merely on account of the smoothness of
the surface; it forms a high tableland, nearly three hundred feet above
the lake, and is surrounded by high hills. This spot, though now dry and
covered with turf and flowers, and low bushes, has evidently once been
a broad sheet of water. To the eastward lies a still more lovely and
attractive spot, known as the "lower Race-course;" it lies on a lower
level than the former one, and, like it, is embanked by a ridge of
distant hills; both have ravines leading down to the Rice Lake, and
may have been the sources from whence its channel was filled. Some
convulsion of nature at a remote period, by raising the waters above
their natural level, might have caused a disruption of the banks, and
drained their beds, as they now appear ready for the ploughshare or the
spade. In the month of June these flats are brilliant with the splendid
blossoms of the _enchroma_, or painted cup, the azure lupine and snowy
_trillium_ roses scent the evening air, and grow as if planted by the
hand of taste.

A carpeting of the small downy saxifrage _[FN: Saxifraga nivalis.]_
with its white silky leaves covers the ground in early spring. In the
fall, it is red with the bright berries and dark box-shaped leaves of a
species of creeping winter-green, that the Indians call spiceberry; the
leaves are highly aromatic, and it is medicinal as well as agreeable
to the taste and smell. In the month of July a gorgeous assemblage
of martagon lilies take the place of the lupine and trilliums; these
splendid lilies vary from orange to the brightest scarlet; various
species of sunflowers and _coreopsis_ next appear, and elegant white
_pyrolas_ _[FN: Gentiana linearis, G. crenata.]_ scent the air and
charm the eye. The delicate lilac and white shrubby asters next appear,
and these are followed by the large deep blue gentian, and here and
there by the elegant fringed gentian. _[FN: Pyrola rotundifolia,
P. asarifolia.]_ These are the latest and loveliest of the flowers
that adorn this tract of land. It is indeed a garden of nature's own
planting, but the wild garden is being converted into fields of grain,
and the wild flowers give place to a new race of vegetables, less
ornamental, but more useful to man and the races