228 A TASTE OF KENTUCKY BLUE-GKASS 



rarely stand near the highway, but are set after 

 the English fashion, from a third to half a mile 

 distant, amid a grove of primitive forest trees, 

 and flanked or backed up by the many lesser 

 buildings that the times of slavery made neces- 

 sary. Educated gentlemen farmers are proba- 

 bly the rule more than in the North. There 

 are not so many small or so many leased farms. 

 The proprietors are men of means, and come 

 the nearest to forming a landed gentry of any 

 class of men we have in this country. They 

 are not city men running a brief and rapid ca- 

 reer on a fancy farm, but genuine countrymen, 

 who love the land and mean to keep it. I re- 

 member with pleasure one rosy-faced young 

 farmer, whose place we casually invaded in 

 Lincoln County. He was a graduate of Har- 

 vard University and of the law school, but here 

 he was with his trousers tucked into his boot- 

 legs, helping to cultivate his corn, or looking 

 after his herds upon his broad acres. He was 

 nearly the ideal of a simple, hearty, educated 

 country farmer and gentleman. 



But the feature of this part of Kentucky 

 which struck me the most forcibly, and which 

 is perhaps the most unique, are the immense 

 sylvan or woodland pastures. The forests are 

 simply vast grassy orchards of maple and oak, 

 or other trees, where the herds graze and repose. 

 They everywhere give a look to the land as of 

 royal parks and commons. They are as clean 

 as a meadow and as inviting as long, grassy 

 vistas and circles of cool shade can make them. 



