Forrest lifted his right hand, the quirt dangling from wrist, the
straight forefinger touching the rim of his Baden Powell in semi-
military salute.

The mare, prancing and whirling again, he held her with a touch of
rein and threat of spur, and gazed after the four-footed silk that
filled the road with shimmering white. He knew the significance of
their presence. The time for kidding was approaching and they were
being brought down from their brush-pastures to the brood-pens and
shelters for jealous care and generous feed through the period of
increase. And as he gazed, in his mind, comparing, was a vision of all
the best of Turkish and South African mohair he had ever seen, and his
flock bore the comparison well. It looked good. It looked very good.

He rode on. From all about arose the clacking whir of manure-
spreaders. In the distance, on the low, easy-sloping hills, he saw
team after team, and many teams, three to a team abreast, what he knew
were his Shire mares, drawing the plows back and forth across,
contour-plowing, turning the green sod of the hillsides to the rich
dark brown of humus-filled earth so organic and friable that it would
almost melt by gravity into fine-particled seed-bed. That was for the
corn--and sorghum-planting for his silos. Other hill-slopes, in the
due course of his rotation, were knee-high in barley; and still other
slopes were showing the good green of burr clover and Canada pea.

Everywhere about him, large fields and small were arranged in a system
of accessibility and workability that would have warmed the heart of
the most meticulous efficiency-expert. Every fence was hog-tight and
bull-proof, and no weeds grew in the shelters of the fences. Many of
the level fields were in alfalfa. Others, following the rotations,