“Why, there is a blue-grass girl.”
There was no mistaking the neat dress, the style, the rounded contours, the gracious personage. A few steps farther on the geologists found the outcropping of the blue limestone.
Perhaps the people of this region are trying to live up to the thorough-bred. A pedigree is a necessity. The horse is of the first consideration, and either has or gives a sort of social distinction; first, the running horse, the thorough-bred, and now the trotting horse, which is beginning to have a recognizable descent, and is on the way to be a thorough-bred. Many of the finest plantations are horse farms; one might call them the feature of the country. Horse-raising is here a science, and as we drive from one estate to another, and note the careful tillage, the trim fences, the neat stables, the pretty paddocks, and the houses of the favorites, we see how everything is intended to contribute to the perfection in refinement of fibre, speed, and endurance of the noble animal. Even persons who are usually indifferent to horses cannot but admire these beautiful high-bred creatures, either the famous ones displayed at the stables, or the colts and fillies, which have yet their reputations to make, at play in the blue-grass pastures; and the pleasure one experiences is a refined one in harmony with the landscape. Usually horse-dealing carries with it a lowering of the moral tone, which we quite understand when we say of a man that he is “horsy.” I suppose the truth is that man has degraded the idea of the horse by his own evil passions, using him to gamble and cheat with. Now, the visitor will find little of these degrading associations in the blue-grass region. It is an orthodox and a moral region. The best and most successful horse-breeders have nothing to do with racing or betting. The yearly product of their farms is sold at auction, without reserve or favor. The sole business is the production of the best animals that science and care can breed. Undeniably where the horse is of such importance he is much in the thought, and the use of “horsy” phrases in ordinary conversation shows his effect upon the vocabulary. The recital of pedigree at the stables, as horse after horse is led out, sounds a little like a chapter from the Book of Genesis, and naturally this Biblical formula gets into a conversation about people.
And after the horses there is whiskey. There are many distilleries in this part of the country, and a great deal of whiskey is made. I am not defending whiskey, at least any that is less than thirty years old and has attained a medicinal quality. But I want to express my opinion that this is as temperate as any region in the United States. There is a wide-spread strict temperance sentiment, and even prohibition prevails to a considerable degree. Whiskey is made and stored, and mostly shipped away; rightly or wrongly, it is regarded as a legitimate business, like wheatraising, and is conducted by honorable men. I believe this to be the truth, and that drunkenness does not prevail in the neighborhood of the distilleries, nor did I see anywhere in the country evidence of a habit of dram drinking, of the traditional matter-of-course offering of whiskey as a hospitality. It is true that mint grows in Kentucky, and that there are persons who would win the respect of a tide-water Virginian in the concoction of a julep. And no doubt in the mind of the born Kentuckian there is a rooted belief that if a person needed a stimulant, the best he can take is old hand-made whiskey. Where the manufacture of whiskey is the source of so much revenue, and is carried on with decorum, of course the public sentiment about it differs from that of a community that makes its money in raising potatoes for starch. Where the horse is so beautiful, fleet, and profitable, of course there is intense interest in him, and the general public take a lively pleasure in the races; but if the reader has been accustomed to associate this part of Kentucky with horse-racing and drinking as prominent characteristics, he must revise his opinion.
Perhaps certain colonial habits lingered longer in Kentucky than elsewhere. Travellers have spoken about the habit of profanity and gambling, especially the game of poker. In the West generally profane swearing is not as bad form as it is in the East. But whatever distinction central Kentucky had in profanity or poker, it has evidently lost it. The duel lingered long, and prompt revenge for insults, especially to women. The blue-grass region has “histories”—beauty has been fought about; women have had careers; families have run out through dissipation. One may hear stories of this sort even in the Berkshire Hills, in any place where there have been long settlement, wealth, and time for the development of family and personal eccentricities. And there is still a flavor left in Kentucky; there is still a subtle difference in its social tone; the intelligent women are attractive in another way from the intelligent New England women—they have a charm of their own. May Heaven long postpone the day when, by the commercial spirit and trade and education, we shall all be alike in all parts of the Union! Yet it would be no disadvantage to anybody if the graciousness, the simplicity of manner, the refined hospitality, of the blue-grass region should spread beyond the blue limestone of the Lower Silurian.
In the excellent State Museum at Frankfort, under the charge of Prof. John R. Procter, * who is State Geologist and also Director of the Bureau of Immigration, in addition to the admirable exhibit of the natural resources of Kentucky, are photographs, statistics, and products showing the condition of the Swiss and other foreign farming colonics recently established in the State, which were so interesting and offered so many instructive points that I determined to see some of the colonies.
* Whatever value this paper has is so largely due to
Professor Procter that I desire to make to him the most
explicit acknowledgments. One of the very best results of
the war was keeping him in the Union.
This museum and the geological department, the intelligent management of which has been of immense service to the commonwealth, is in one of the detached buildings which make up the present Capitol. The Capitol is altogether antiquated, and not a credit to the State. The room in which the Lower House meets is shabby and mean, yet I noticed that it is fairly well lighted by side windows, and debate can be heard in it conducted in an ordinary tone of voice. Kentucky will before many years be accommodated with new State buildings more suited to her wealth and dignity. But I should like to repeat what was said in relation to the Capitol of Arkansas. Why cannot our architects devise a capitol suited to the wants of those who occupy it? Why must we go on making these huge inconvenient structures, mainly for external display, in which the legislative Chambers are vast air-tight and water-tight compartments, commonly completely surrounded by other rooms and lobbies, and lighted only from the roof, or at best by high windows in one or two sides that permit no outlook—rooms difficult to speak or hear in, impossible to ventilate, needing always artificial light? Why should the Senators of the United States be compelled to occupy a gilded dungeon, unlighted ever by the sun, unvisited ever by the free wind of heaven, in which the air is so foul that the Senators sicken? What sort of legislation ought we to expect from such Chambers? It is perfectly feasible to build a legislative room cheerful and light, open freely to sun and air on three sides. In order to do this it may be necessary to build a group of connected buildings, instead of the parallelogram or square, which is mostly domed, with gigantic halls and stair-ways, and, considering the purpose for which it is intended, is a libel on our ingenuity and a burlesque on our civilization.
Kentucky has gone to work in a very sensible way to induce immigration and to attract settlers of the right sort. The Bureau of Immigration was established in 1880. It began to publish facts about the State, in regard to the geologic formation, the soils, the price of lands, both the uncleared and the lands injured by slovenly culture, the kind and amount of products that might be expected by thrifty farming, and the climate; not exaggerated general proclamations promising sudden wealth with little labor, but facts such as would attract the attention of men willing to work in order to obtain for themselves and their children comfortable homes and modest independence. Invitations were made for a thorough examination of lands—of the different sorts of soils in different counties—before purchase and settlement. The leading idea was to induce industrious farmers who were poor, or had not money enough to purchase high-priced improved lands, to settle upon lands that the majority of Kentuckians considered scarcely worth cultivating, and the belief was that good farming would show that these neglected lands were capable of becoming very productive. Eight years’ experience has fully justified all these expectations. Colonies of Swiss, Germans, Austrians, have come, and Swedes also, and these have attracted many from the North and North-west. In this period I suppose as many as ten thousand immigrants of this class, thrifty cultivators of the soil, have come into the State, many of whom are scattered about the State, unconnected with the so-called colonies. These colonies are not organized communities in any way separated from the general inhabitants of the State. They have merely settled together for companionship and social reasons, where a sufficiently large tract of cheap land was found to accommodate them. Each family owns its own farm, and is perfectly independent. An indiscriminate immigration has not been desired or encouraged, but the better class of laboring agriculturists, grape-growers, and stock-raisers. There are several settlements of these, chiefly Swiss, dairy-farmers, cheese-makers, and vine-growers, in Laurel County; others in Lincoln County, composed of Swiss, Germans, and Austrians; a mixed colony in Rock Castle County; a thriving settlement of Austrians in Boyle County; a temperance colony of Scandinavians in Edmonson County; another Scandinavian colony in Grayson County; and scattered settlements of Germans and Scandinavians in Christian County. These settlements have from one hundred to over a thousand inhabitants each. The lands in Laurel and Lincoln counties, which I travelled through, are on a high plateau, with good air and temperate climate, but with a somewhat thin, loamy, and sandy soil, needing manure, and called generally in the State poor land—poor certainly compared with the blue-grass region and other extraordinarily fertile sections. These farms, which had been more or less run over by Kentucky farming, were sold at from one to five dollars an acre. They are farms that a man cannot live on in idleness. But they respond well to thrifty tillage, and it is a sight worth a long journey to see the beautiful farms these Swiss have made out of land that the average Kentuckian thought not worth cultivating. It has not been done without hard work, and as most of the immigrants were poor, many of them have had a hard struggle in building comfortable houses, reducing the neglected land to order, and obtaining stock. A great attraction to the Swiss was that this land is adapted to vine culture, and a reasonable profit was expected from selling grapes and making wine. The vineyards are still young; experiment has not yet settled what kind of grapes flourish best, but many vine-growers have realized handsome profits in the sale of fruit, and the trial is sufficient to show that good wine can be produced. The only interference thus far with the grapes has been the unprecedented late freeze last spring.
At the recent exposition in Louisville the exhibit of these Swiss colonies—the photographs showing the appearance of the unkempt land when they bought it, and the fertile fields of grain and meadow and vineyards afterwards, and the neat, plain farm cottages, the pretty Swiss chalet with its attendants of intelligent comely girls in native costumes offering articles illustrating the taste and the thrift of the colonies, wood-carving, the products of the dairy, and the fruit of the vine—attracted great attention.