This country is furnished with most excellent turnpike - roads. One might ride smoothly on a bicycle from Louisville through Lexington to the eastern edge of the blue-grass region, 130 miles, and from the Ohio River through Lexington for 140 miles, on the best of macadam road; in fact, the whole region is covered with a net-work of these turnpikes, so that every neighborhood is penetrated. It is a region reminding the traveller of the very richest parts of England, while the frequent comfortable houses will remind him that he is not in England, but in a country where the farmer owns the land, and spends his substance upon it. The general level ranges from 800 to 1100 feet above the sea, and is claimed to be entirely above malaria; it is watered by many streams rising in the Cumberland Mountains, which, combining, form the Licking and Kentucky rivers. The monthly mean temperature for the three summer months is 73°, 76°, and 73°, and for the three winter months 27°, 30°, and 35°. The finest stock and brood mares are wintered on the blue-grass pastures without shelter. It is a cause of much quiet joking among the stock-breeders that the most knowing horse men from other States buy what are apparently their best colts at high prices, leaving what appear to be only second-rates; but the latter, bred on blue-grass and lime-water, and hardened by exposure to the not too severe winters, are apt to win the races, and keep up the Kentucky name, even more than those of the first class, which are more carefully sheltered and trained. But the point which attracts one most in this region is the fact that crops of grain may be raised year after year, alternating occcasionally with hemp and blue-grass, far exceeding the average of most other parts of this country, and without the use of a particle of manure. fact, the average crop of wheat produced in this section by good farmers without manure is above the average of the high farming of England in a good year. In for the common practice, the land is left in the best condition for grain, the fibre of hemp being mostly carbonaceous matter drawn from the atmosphere. What might be done with this land if some experiments were tried with acid fertilizers adapted to releasing the elements of the limestone more rapidly, is one of the problems that may yet yield some astounding results. It would also be an interesting experiment if some of the farmers would subsoil a few acres, and plant wheat in single grains, nine inches apart each way, so that each plant might "tiller" to the utmost extent. The following statements bear witness to what is now done. Farmer C-, of Franklin County, testifies that he averages twenty bushels of wheat to the acre after corn; but his average on sod land or after hemp is thirty-five bushels, and one year he raised forty-five bushels to the acre on land which had been three years previously in hemp. No manure used. Farmer A- of Woodford County, averages thirty to forty bushels on clover sod or after hemp. His best crop was fifty-two bushels, on land four years in hemp. No manure. Another farmer in Woodford County had made 4000 bushels of wheat on 100 acres. As evidence of the inherent fertility of the soil, and the power of restoration without the use of manure, I have the following from a farmer: "Purchased a farm ten years since that had been badly worn by careless tenants for twenty-five years, and at the time of purchase would yield only five barrels of corn to the acre; by rotation with clover, had brought it up to twelve barrels." This farmer gave me his average of wheat after corn at eighteen bushels per acre, and computed the cost per acre as follows: A second farmer's estimate of cost is, on sod land: Seed. Ploughing. Planting Cutting Threshing. It is true that some crops appear to have a little temporary effect upon the soil; instance, when wheat is planted immediately after maize, or Indian corn, the crop is less than when it follows hemp. The land will produce from 800 pounds to 1400 pounds of hemp per acre, and if the stalks are rotted on the field, according to -25 bushels, or 31 cents per bushel. Total...... $1.00 2.00 1.00 1 25 2.50 $7 75 On hemp land: Seed Total. $1.00 1 25 $5 75 -at 25 bushels, 23 cents per bushel; at 30 bushels, 19 cents per bushel. to Richmond, Virginia, by this line will be 540 miles, and to Norfolk 640 miles. At present the distance to New York from this section by rail is 830 miles. The completion of projected roads will also give a nearer outlet to the south. When the railway service is completed, consolidated, and worked as cheaply be Barley is growing in favor. The fore-tween this section and the sea-board as it man of a fine farm showed me a field of blue-grass laid by for winter pasture on which he had made forty bushels of barley to the acre the year before. No manure. Hay is also coming in as a salable and very profitable crop. Much of the wheat is now carried south over the Cincinnati Southern Railroad, and is distributed from Chattanooga and Atlanta. There is a growing demand for wheat in the South, accompanying the increased prosperity which has ensued from the establishment of free labor. It may be asked why Kentucky should hold so small a place in the production of wheat, her crop being only five to seven million bushels. The answer is that the land is held by a race of men with whom stock-breeding is almost hereditary. As we have stated, the pasture is practically perpetual, and of the best description, hence most of the blue-grass country is devoted to the raising of horses, mules, and cattle. This occupation is easier, and was much more consistent with the system of slave labor by which the progress of the State was retarded until a period considerably after the surrender of the Confederate army. is now between the Western States and New York, the cost of transportation will not exceed $3 50 to $4 per ton, or 11 to 12 cents per bushel. Add to this the freight and charges to Liverpool, and it will appear that it may not be impossible that a time may come when the actual cost in Liverpool of wheat raised in Kentucky will not exceed 60 to 70 cents per bushel of 60 pounds, or at 8+ bushels to the quarter of 500 pounds, $5 to $5 84, equal to about 20s. 10d. to 25s. per quarter, all charges paid. At or above 30s. per quarter the production and traffic will be permanently profitable. This limestone region which I have described, known as Blue-Grass," comprises 10,000 square miles, or 6,400,000 acres. The area of land now under cultivation in wheat in all Great Britain is less than 5000 square miles, or under 3,000,000 acres, on which a little less than half the flour used by the people is now raised. It is beginning to appear that no rent can be paid on land devoted to wheat in Great Britain when the price in Mark Lane is less than 40s. per quarter. Improved farms in this section of Kentucky, furnished with good houses and farm buildings, are now worth $35 to $100 per acre. The land is now changing hands with considerable rapidity, and, under the impulse of the new forces that have come in The character of the people is one of with free labor, it seems probable that the main considerations. They are vigfarming may be substituted for stock-orous, very hospitable, old-fashioned, with breeding, and that larger crops of cereals, tobacco, and of hemp and flax will ensue. In Kentucky the farms of less than ten acres in size increased in number from 6868 in 1860 to 16,292 in 1870, and the total of farms under 100 acres increased the same period from 58,350 to 92,149, whilst the number of farms of over 500 and under 1000 acres decreased. few exceptions not much given to books, and farming just as their fathers did. They have been a fighting race, but carrying arms secretly is forbidden by law, and the law is rigidly enforced. They are quick to resent an insult, but do not force their ways upon strangers. Much of the land is passing into new hands, and the old duelling and homicidal era is almost a thing of the past. Access to the sea-board is now by way of Cincinnati, but other lines are being East of the blue-grass region lies the constructed that will give outlets at the Kentucky section of the terra incognita fine harbor of Norfolk and on the York described in the first part of this article. and James rivers, Virginia. This line will The portion of the mountain, interior valbe completed to Lexington by June next.ley, and plateau region in this State comFrom the centre of the blue-grass region | prises about 10,000 square miles, and is of untold wealth. The plateau and the upland valleys are 1500 to 2000 feet above the level of the sea. The soil is the disintegrated rock of the mountains, rich in all the elements of fertility. The hill-sides are covered with forests of oak, yellow poplar, chestnut, ash, hickory, cherry, pine, etc. In De Friese's report, constituting a part of the geologic survey of Kentucky, a section of the North Cumberland Valley is described; among other facts it is said that in an area of 1250 square yards there were found among other trees six black walnut with an average diameter of forty inches, five buckeye averaging twentynine inches, three white ash averaging thirty-four inches, and six linden averaging twenty-three inches. The coal measures of this section reach a thickness of 2000 feet above the drainage level of the country, containing many beds of very superior quality. The deposits of the best quality of cannel-coal are more extensive than elsewhere, and iron ore beds of great richness, extent, and purity are very favor ably located with reference to the coal. Various lines of railway are now projected or in process of construction which will soon open this region to colonization. The State of Kentucky is free from debt, and has a well-established system of common schools, sustained on a method differing in some respects from other States. The school tax is assessed at the rate of twenty cents on the $100 on the property of the State, but is divided according to the number of children, so that the people in the poorer sections or in the mountain districts are aided at their time of greatest need in the support of their schools. Land in these mountain districts and upland valleys can be bought now in large quantities-in parcels of to 100,000 acres at $1 50 to $3 per acre-and offers great opportunities for the establishment of colonies after the manner of Rugby. It is a matter of considerable importance that this great section should become more generally known, especially the mountain portion, even the geography of which is not fully comprehended as yet. In the far interior of the hills are people who have never seen a wheeled vehicle, and who depend upon the outside world only for steel needles, making even their own iron and pottery. It has lately been determined to add to the International Cotton Exhibition, which is to be held at Atlanta, Georgia, in the months of October, November, and December, 1881, a building modelled after that which contained the agricultural and mineral products of Kansas and Colorado at the Centennial Exhibition of 1876. In this building will be gathered examples of the minerals, the clays, the timber, the soils, and products of agriculture, and the flora and fauna of this great but almost unknown land, which constitutes the backbone of the eastern portion of our territory. The tenant-farmers of England and Scotland number about five hundred thousand. Their occupation seems to be approaching its end, as it becomes more and more evident that there is no longer an adequate margin in the prices of the great staple of agriculture from which rent can be paid, and that English land, like our own, must be cultivated by its owners, either in large or small parcels. To this class of tenant-farmers this section will offer the most favorable conditions, where they can buy good land at less than the rent they have been paying. The marked feature, throughout the Piedmont district especially, is the rapid division of land, and the great increase in the number of small land-owners. 66 Cotton and tobacco are especially suited to small farms, and if the practice of 'ensilaging" green fodder is half as effective as its enthusiastic promoters allege, another force will have been developed, working distinctly in the direction of the good cultivation of moderate parcels of land. The writer of this article has prepared it con amore, thinking that a Massachusetts man could make no better return for the hospitality of his Kentucky hosts than to describe the two sections in which he passed a few pleasant days, in either of which portions of that great State poor little Massachusetts could be placed, and the part that extended outside her limits wrapped over her so that she could hardly be seen. But for the present old Massachusetts can match the acres of her workshops and factory floors even against blue-grass, and give odds besides; but what will be the conditions of the match in the next century may be a question for the children of the blue-grass farmers and of the coming colonists to determine. BOOK THE SECOND.-DARE AND HAVILL. CHAPTER VII.-(Continued.) models. To see her attitudes would be of great assistance to me in the art I love "She's very "OH, it is you, Miss Birch," said Dare, so well." on overtaking her. "I am glad to have the pleasure of walking by your side." "Yes, sir. Oh, it's Mr. Dare. We don't see you at the castle now, sir." "No. And do you get a walk like this every evening when the others are at their busiest?" "Almost every evening; that's the one return to the poor lady's-maid for losing her leisure when the others get it-in the absence of the family from home." "Is Miss Power a hard mistress ?" "No." "Rather fanciful than hard, I presume?" "Just so, sir." "And she likes to appear to advantage, no doubt ?" "I suppose so," said Milly, laughing. "We all do." "When does she appear to the best advantage? When riding, or driving, or reading her book?" "Not altogether then, if you mean the very best." "Perhaps it is when she sits looking at the glass at herself, and you let down her hair?" "Not particularly, to my mind." "When does she to your mind? When dressed for a dinner party or ball?” "Well, yes. But there is a time when she looks more bewitching than at any. It is when she is in the gymnasium." "Oh!-gymnasium!" "Because when she is there she wears such a pretty boy's costume, and is so charming in her movements, that you think she is a lovely youth, and not a girl at all." "When does she go to this gymnasium?" "Not so much as she used to. Only on wet mornings now, when she can't get out for walks or drives. But she used to do it every day." "I should like to see her there." "Why, sir? It would hardly be right." "I am a poor artist, and can't afford VOL. LXIII-No. 373.-9 Milly shook her head. strict about the door being locked. If I were to leave it open, she would dismiss me, as I should deserve.” "But consider, dear Milly, the advantage to a poor artist the sight of her would be: if you could hold the door ajar, it would be worth five pounds to me, and a good deal to you." "No," said the incorruptible Milly. "Besides, I don't always go there with her. Oh no, I couldn't." Milly remained so firm at this point that Dare said no more. Like When he had left her he returned to the castle grounds, and though there was not much light, he had no difficulty in discovering the gymnasium, the outside of which he had observed before, without thinking to inquire its purpose. the erections in other parts of the shrubberies, it was constructed of wood, the interstices between the framing being filled up with short billets of fir nailed diagonally. Dare, even when without a settled plan in his head, could arrange for probabilities; and wrenching out one of the billets, he looked inside. It seemed to be a simple oblong apartment, fitted up with ropes, with a little dressing closet at one end, and lighted by a skylight or lantern in the roof. Dare replaced the wood and went on his way. Havill was smoking on his door-step when Dare passed up the street. He held up his hand. "Since you have been gone," said the architect, "I've hit upon something that may help you in exhibiting your lady to your gentleman. In the summer I had orders to design a gymnasium for her, which I did; and they say she is very clever on the ropes and bars. Now-" "I've discovered it. I shall contrive for him to see her there on the first wet morning, which is when she practices. What made her think of it?" "As you may have heard, she holds advanced views on social and other matters, and in those on the higher education of women she is very strong, talking a good deal about the physical training of the Greeks, whom she adores, or did. Every philosopher and man of science who ventilates his theories in the monthly reviews has a devout listener in her; and this subject of the physical development of her sex has had its turn with other things in her mind. So she had the place built, on her very first arrival, according to the latest lights on athletics, and in imitation of those at the new colleges for women." "How deuced clever of the girl! She means to live to be a hundred." CHAPTER VIII. THE wet day arrived with all the promptness that might have been expected of it in this land of rains and mists. The alder bushes behind the gymnasium dripped monotonously leaf upon leaf, added to this being the purl of the shallow stream a little way off, producing a sense of satiety in watery sound. Though there was drizzle in the open meads, the rain here in the thicket was comparatively slight, and two men in Ulster coats who stood beneath one of the larger bushes found its boughs a sufficient shelter. "We may as well walk home again as study nature here, Willy," said the taller and elder of the twain. "I feared it would continue when we started. The magnificent prospect you speak of must rest for to-day." The other looked at his watch, but made no particular reply. "Come, let us move on. I don't like intruding into other people's grounds like this," De Stancy continued. "We are not intruding. Anybody walks outside this fence." He denoted an iron railing, newly tarred, dividing the wilder underwood amid which they stood from the inner and well-kept parts of the shrubbery, and against which the back of the gymnasium was built. Light footsteps upon a gravel-walk could be heard on the other side of the fence, and a trio of cloaked and umbrellascreened figures were for a moment discernible. They vanished behind the gymnasium; and again nothing resounded but the river murmurs and the clocklike drippings of the leafage. "Hush!" said Dare. "No pranks, my boy," said De Stancy, suspiciously. "You should be above them." "And you should trust to my good sense, Captain," Dare remonstrated. "I have not indulged in a prank since the sixth year of my pilgrimage: I have found them too damaging to my interests. Well, it is not too dry here, and damp injures your health, you say. Have a pull for safety's sake." He presented a flask to De Stancy. The artillery officer looked down at his nether garments. "I don't break my rule without good reason," he observed. "I am afraid that reason exists at present." De Stancy took the flask, and drank a little. "It warms, does it not?" said Dare. "Too much," said De Stancy, with misgiving. "I have been taken unawares. Why, it is three parts brandy, to my taste, you scamp!" "Now you Dare put away the wine. are to see her, as I promised," he said. "Her? - Miss Pow-" Captain De Stancy shrank back with a deprecating look. "Come, Captain De Stancy, the white feather at the last moment-no! It is for your good, you know. Now just look in here." The speaker advanced to the back of the building, and withdrew the wood billet from the wall. "Well, what must be will be, I suppose," said De Stancy, with a comfortable resignation, produced partially by the potent liquor, which would have been comical to an outsider, but which, to one who had known the history and relationship of the two speakers, would have worn a sadder significance. "I am too big a fool about you to thwart you as I ought; that's the fault of me, worse luck." He pressed the youth's hand with a smile, went forward, and looked through the hole into the interior of the gymna |