82 MEADOWS AND PASTURES 



Once in Burke' s Garden in Tazewell county an old 

 man told me of the first coming of bluegrass to that 

 mountain vale. His father was a slave-owner who grew 

 corn, and the new grass coming unsown troubled him 

 greatly. He had the slaves dig it up and lay it on the 

 stumps to die, dolefully predicting that "this grass will 

 some day run us out of the country/' Instead, the grass 

 now carpets nearly all of the valley and sends out many 

 fine fat cattle and lambs each year. 



When the Virginians went to Kentucky they unwit- 

 tingly took the grass with them in their old high wagon 

 boxes as forage for their horses or as bedding for them- 

 selves. Thus it spread along the wayside and in a few 

 years w^as at home in the new r , rich soils of central Ken- 

 tucky. It found there a most congenial home. That 

 soil is rich in phosphorus and rich in lime. Bluegrass 

 grew there so vigorously that it seemed like a new plant 

 and took the name of the state in which it grew best. 

 It is assuredly true that bluegrass partakes considerably 

 of the nature of the soil upon which it grows. This is 

 true of other plants as well, but is perhaps more espe- 

 cially true of this grass. At least it is notable that 

 horses grazed on bluegrass in Kentucky on the soils so 

 rich in lime and phosphorus have a splendid bone and 

 a wonderful stamina and endurance. They have also 

 an almost inextinguishable goodness that is hard to de- 

 fine or explain. It is as true of the men and women 

 of the region, so the underlying rocks and soil do assur- 

 edly influence what springs out of them. Ohio may on 

 its more favored acres grow more bluegrass than Ken- 

 tucky, but it seems to make softer horseflesh and poorer 



