- published: 07 May 2016
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Kentucky (i/kɨnˈtʌki/), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state located in the Upper South of the United States. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth (the others being Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts). Originally a part of Virginia, in 1792 Kentucky became the 15th state to join the Union. Kentucky is the 37th most extensive and the 26th most populous of the 50 United States.
Kentucky is known as the "Bluegrass State", a nickname based on the fact that bluegrass is present in many of the pastures throughout the state, because of the fertile soil. It made possible the breeding of high-quality livestock, especially thoroughbred racing horses. It is a land with diverse environments and abundant resources, including the world's longest cave system, Mammoth Cave National Park; the greatest length of navigable waterways and streams in the contiguous United States; and the two largest man-made lakes east of the Mississippi River. It is also home to the highest per capita number of deer and turkey in the United States, the largest free-ranging elk herd east of Montana, and the nation's most productive coalfield. Kentucky is also known for horse racing, bourbon distilleries, bluegrass music, automobile manufacturing, tobacco and college basketball.
A bowling green is a finely-laid, close-mown and rolled stretch of lawn for playing the game of lawn bowls.
Before 1830, when Edwin Beard Budding invented the lawnmower, lawns were often kept cropped by grazing sheep on them. The world's oldest surviving bowling green is the Southampton Old Bowling Green, which was first used in 1299.
When the French adopted "boulingrin" in the 17th century, it was understood to mean a sunk geometrically shaped piece of perfect grass, framed in gravel walks, which often formed the center of a regularly planted wood called a bosquet, somewhat like a highly formalized glade; it might have a central pool or fountain.
The diarist Samuel Pepys relates a conversation he had with the architect Hugh May:
Bowling green specifications are stipulated in the Laws of the Sport of Bowls.
Several games of bowls can be played on a bowling green at the same time. The number of games depends on the dimensions of the green. Each game is played on its own portion of the green. These divided portions of the green are called rinks.
I wish I was in bowling Green
Sittin' in a chair
With one arm around this old guitar
And the other 'round my dear, the other 'round my dear
Bowling Green, hey, good old bowling green
I've been all around this whole wide world
Been to Tennessee
But there's no other place that I would rather be
That's home sweet home to me
Bowling Green, hey, good old bowling green
If I had a dollar for every song I've sung
I could live in clover until my race was run
until my race was run, until my race was run
But I ain't got a dollar, I ain't got one thin dime
But I got a sweetie pie who loves me all the time
Who loves me all the time