The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1914-11-17
(BiOn Fl. Butlcr.)

oNN1A
looking over Davidson county, visit
ing with the people in the town, riding
out the county roads. listening to the
farmers as they tell me of their hopes
for the future, ~slapping their sleek
horses on the flanks. leaning over the
fences where the pigs and sheep the
confined, watching the young men
n women ride trim saddle horses
at the stock fair, and it calls to mind
another picture which will not sep
arate itself from this one.
The other picture is q composite
one, for it is Davidson county and
Lexington, also, although in the other
picture Lexington is in Fayette cOun-
ty, and Fayette county is in the Ken
lucky blue grass, and the other Da-
wilson is on the Cumberland in the
Tennessee blue grass rolling back from
the noisy streets Of Nashville and the
dusty limestone pixies that go out in
all directions to the country.
The famous Belle Meade farm was
in Davidson county in my day in that
country, and we used to go out and
admire those wonderful sires, Bonnie
Scotland, and Luke Blackburn and
Bramble, and the Jersey cattle that
had pedigrees as long as from Kaiser
back to Adam, the old scions
Of the early imported Rioter, and
Stoke Pogis. and Toysawyera and
Coomassie blood, and we knew that
we were in the presence of royalty.
Or that other Lexington, the Mecca
OF the American horseman, the cap
ital of the interesting Blue Grass
try. and that sort of a thing sticks
to your m when once it has
painted its picture there. I confess
that as l wandered around Lexing-
ton and Davidson county here in
North Carolina half the time | was
thinking of the fine farms and ro-
mantle scenes and the quaint town
pictures Of that other Lexington and
that other Davidson county and l
would not have been surprised to
see James Lane Allen or the charac-'
ters from some of his stories come
up the street, or to meet Henry Clay,
or the Breckenridges, or Gen. Cheat
ham. rest his kindly soul, or Gov.
Bate. or any of the dreams or hu-
man factors associated with the Lex
ington and the Davidson county that I
knew before / ever knew these Of the
Catawba valley.
The tournament.
And the boys had a tournament at
the live stock show, where they rode
their horses as we'll as I ever saw
horses handled in Tennessee or Ken
lucky, and they rode horses that may
have come from Fayette or Davidson
county ancestry for all L know, and
they put their horses through the
gaits as well as if it were done in
Fayette county, Kentucky or David
son county, Tennessee, which means
as well as it could be done any
where.
l keep thinking Of Tennessee and
Kentucky, possibly the similarity Of
names. and the similarity Of land
Scqno and tho cinoi1or;fu ~ o-oL;t;o-
having much to do with it, and l grew
enthusiastic over the possibilities here
in this eastern Davidson and Lexing-
ton. for what has been done in Dav-
idson and Lexington the other side
or the mountains is in the hands OF
the people here if they go on a little
farther as they have started.
Davidson is another section Of this
over modest State of North Carolina
that has not yet discovered its natural
opportunities. went down to Lin
wood farm with Frank Hargraves. We
crossed into a meadow where he is
grazing a nerd Of twenty or thirty
Aberdeen Angus cattle. Fine, square
built steers with backs so broad you
could almost set a table on them.
Sheep, the creature with the golden
hoof OF the ancients, nibbled on the
cages or the pasture. Long-drawn,
square built Yorkshire pigs. "as big as
Alexander, Pa, that people call him
great as we read in the school books
forty years ago. Over the hill beyond
rise the barns and silos of the Bell
farm. a farm that has been in the
family nearly as long as the United
States has been in Uncle Sans family
over the other bill the we'll kept stock
farm of w. 3. Mears, and under foot
the live green Of blue grass, the blue
grass Of Lexington and Davidson over
the mountain range in the sunset
country.
"A Stock Country.
davidson county is growing into a
STOCK country. The dairy barn at the
Dermott Shemwell place is a model
Inc horses there are fit. 1 saw a
team put on the scales that weighed
wltnin TWO pounds of each other. and
together they go above a ton and a
naiI. A seven-months colt that pulls
oowh over seven hundred pounds is
not bad. is it?
The Kentucky blue grass country
has earned its fame NV produ,;,u 49,