A TASTE OF KENTUCKY BLUE-GRASS 225 



stock farm of Colonel Alexander, where I saw more 

 and finer blooded stock in the way of horses, cattle, 

 and sheep than I had ever seen before. From thence 

 we went south to Colonel Shelby's, where we passed 

 a couple of days on the extreme edge of the blue- 

 grass circle in Boyle County. Here we strike the 

 rim of sharp low hills that run quite around this 

 garden of the State, from the Ohio Biver on the 

 west to the Ohio again on the north and east. Ken- 

 tucky is a great country for licks; there are any 

 number of streams and springs that bear the names 

 of licks. Probably the soil of no other State in the 

 Union has been so much licked and smacked over as 

 that of Kentucky. Colonel Shelby's farm is near a 

 stream called Knob Lick, and within a few miles of 

 a place called Blue Lick. I expected to see some 

 sort of salt spring where the buffalo and deer used 

 to come to lick ; but instead of that saw a raw, naked 

 spot of earth, an acre or two in extent, which had 

 apparently been licked into the shape of a clay model 

 of some scene in Colorado or the Rocky Mountains. 

 There were gullies and chasms and sharp knobs and 

 peaks as blue and barren as could be, and no sign of 

 a spring or of water visible. The buffalo had licked 

 the clay for the saline matter it held, and had cer- 

 tainly made a deep and lasting impression. 



From Shelby City we went west sixty or more 

 miles, skirting the blue-grass region, to Lebanon 

 Junction, where I took the train for Cave City. 

 The blue- grass region is as large as the State of 

 Massachusetts, and is, on the whole, the finest bit 



