A TASTE OF KENTUCKY BLUE-GRASS 231 



lying rock, and thus slowly carrying away the 

 soil with it. They all still have underground 

 drainage through the bottom. By reason of 

 these depressions this part of the State has been 

 called "goose-nest land," their shape suggest- 

 ing the nests of immense geese. On my way 

 southward to the Mammoth Cave, over the 

 formation known as the subcarboniferous, they 

 formed the most noticeable feature of the land- 

 scape. An immense flock of geese had nested 

 here, so that in places the rims of their nests 

 touched one another. As you near the great 

 cave you see a mammoth depression, nothing 

 less than a broad, oval valley which holds entire 

 farms, and which has no outlet save through 

 the bottom. In England these depressions 

 would be called punch- bowls; and though they 

 know well in Kentucky what punch is made 

 of, and can furnish the main ingredient of su- 

 perb quality, and in quantity that would quite 

 fill some of these grassy basins, yet I do not 

 know that they apply this term to them. But 

 in the good old times before the war, when the 

 spirit of politics ran much higher than now, 

 these punch-bowls and the forests about them 

 were the frequent scenes of happy and convi- 

 vial gatherings. Under the great trees the 

 political orators held forth ; a whole ox Avould 

 be roasted to feed the hungry crowd, and some- 

 thing stronger than punch flowed freely. One 

 farmer showed us in our walk where Crittenden 

 and Breckinridge had frequently held forth, but 

 the grass had long been growing over the ashes 

 where the ox had been roasted. 



