A TASTE OF KENTUCKY BLUE-GRASS 227 



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 run- 

 ning a brief and rapid career on a fancy farm, but 

 genuine countrymen, who love the land and mean 

 to keep it. I remember with pleasure one rosy-faced 

 young farmer, whose place we casually invaded in 

 Lincoln County. He was a graduate of Harvard 

 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 sim- 

 ple, 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, is the immense sylvan or wood- 

 land 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. All the saplings and bushy undergrowths 

 common to forests have been removed, leaving only 

 the large trees scattered here and there, which seem 

 to protect rather than occupy the ground. Such a 

 look of leisure, of freedom, of amplitude, as these 

 forest groves give to the landscape ! 



What vistas, what aisles, what retreats, what 

 depths of sunshine and shadow! The grass is as 



