232 A TASTE OF KENTUCKY BLUE-GRASS 



What a land for picnics and open-air meet- 

 ings! The look of it suggested something 

 more large and leisurely than the stress and 

 hurry of our American life. What was there 

 about it that made me think of Walter Scott 

 and the age of romance and chivalry? and of 

 Eobin Hood and his adventurous band under 

 the greenwood tree? Probably it was those 

 stately, open forests, with their clear, grassy 

 vistas where a tournament might be held, and 

 those superb breeds of horses wandering through 

 them upon which it was so easy to fancy 

 knights and ladies riding. The land has not 

 the mellow, time-enriched look of England; it 

 could not have it under our harder, fiercer 

 climate; but it has a sense of breadth and a 

 roominess which one never sees in England ex- 

 cept in the great royal parks. 



The fences are mainly posts and rails, which 

 fall a little short of giving the look of perma- 

 nence which a hedge or a wall and dike afford. 



The Kentuckians have an unhandsome way 

 of treating their forests when they want to get 

 rid of them ; they girdle the trees and let them 

 die, instead of cutting them down at once. A 

 girdled tree dies hard ; the struggle is painful 

 to look upon; inch by inch, leaf by leaf, it 

 yields, and the agony is protracted nearly 

 through the whole season. The land looked 

 accursed when its noble trees were all dying 

 or had died, as if smitten by a plague. One 

 hardly expected to see grass or grain growing 

 upon it. The girdled trees stand for years, 



