The Road to Dumbiedykes 



and there have introduced the bluegrass 

 in those hills, and red barns, modest 

 homesteads^ dairy cows and duck 

 ponds greet the eye of such occasional 

 wanderers as find their way into this 

 delectable region, which is really pic- 

 turesque and as yet more or less primi- 

 tive. I have had day dreams of 

 Horatian happiness there to be found 

 sometime in real retirement on some 

 sequestered Sabine farm. 



There was a time when what is now a 

 wide expanse of grass was given over 

 to the plough, but as a matter of fact 

 the soil was never specially adapted 

 to successful cropping. The wooded 

 knolls that shut away our outlook 

 towards the east really constitute the 

 first rise of land you meet in traveling 

 westerly from the sandy shores of the 

 lake some ten miles distant; and the 

 stiff rebellious clays of which these 

 first ground-swells are mainly com- 

 posed give ample evidence of having 

 once been the bed of a great bay ex- 



[44] 



