352 MEADOWS AND PASTURES 



make more fat than do lush pastures in the cornbelt 

 Once the cattle making export steers were all raised 

 from Short-horn cows kept in the neighborhood or in 

 nearby counties. Now they are many of them brought 

 from western ranches, especially from the Panhandle 

 region in Texas. The cattle go to grass when yearlings 

 and are fed during their first winter on cornstalks with 

 a few small ears of corn. Some graziers feed consider- 

 able corn as grass starts green in spring, though it is not 

 a common practice since not much corn is grown in that 

 region. During the season they are given as good pas- 

 turage as possible, care being taken not to crowd or over- 

 stock them. They are fat in September, October and No- ' 

 vember and are sent direct to the seaports and thence 

 to England. The cattle are not when sold as fat as 

 cornfed cattle, but are such as command good prices 

 on the markets of Great Britain. After the export steers 

 have gone to market there is often left much grass that 

 is taken by youngsters following them. There is often 

 very good profit in making export steers. Sometimes 

 more than $10 per acre is received for the grass that 

 they have eaten. Only the bluegrasses have been found 

 suitable for making export steers. 



LETTERS FROM EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



Before writing this book I addressed letters to the 

 directors of all experiment stations in America, and to 

 those of several foreign lands, asking for information as 

 to what grasses, clovers and other plants were in suc- 

 cessful use in their respective states, and asking them to 

 mention the few that seemed in highest regard, The 



