In the late summer of 1923 I undertook an investigation of midwives in certain selected mountain counties of Kentucky. Leslie, Knott and Owsley were chosen for this purpose. Their area is 373, 348 and 216 square miles respectively, and their population is 10,097, ll,655 and 7,820. The largest places in each are the county seats — Hyden with 313 souls, Hindman with 467 and Booneville with 243, respectively. None are on a rail- road and in none have the coal mines, the vast industrial power in Kentucky, yet been developed. On one edge of Knott county only (the Carr’s Fork section) have a few mines been opened up and a branch railroad has penetrated about eight miles. Nor are any of these counties connected with the outside world us yet by automobile roads — but in Leslie and Owsley such roads leading to heir county seats are actually under construction. The customary ode of travel, and often.the only possible one, is on horseback over such roads or trails as exist, through the creek beds, up the branches, over the gaps and ridges of the mountains.·
The topography of all three counties is somewhat similar. Leslie and Owsley have each a fork of the Kentuclcy River traversing their length, and Leslie and Knott are both more walled in, with steeper mountains and narrower valleys, tho.n any part of Owsley but the eastern end. It has been said that there is not enough level land in Leslie for a tennis court, but a golf course