FARMING IN THE BLUEGRASS REGION. 7 



Satisfactory historical figures on beef cattle and saddle horses can 

 not be gleaned from census records, since cattle have been classified 

 differently in the various census years. Beef cattle, though still 

 numerous, are less important than formerly. About 1890 there was 

 a dropping off not only in the number of beef cattle, but also in the 

 number of all cattle. The saddle and driving horses of the bluegrass 

 region have long been noted, but economic changes have occurred to 

 make them less profitable. Mules, however, have largely filled up the 

 ranks, so that to-day there are about the same number of animals of 

 the horse kind as formerly. It is interesting to notice the gradual 

 decline in the number of working oxen. Horses and mules have 

 almost entirely taken the place of cattle as work stock. 



ROTATION OF CROPS. 



No well-defined system of crop rotation prevails in the bluegrass 

 region. The common custom, however, is to plant corn or tobacco 

 on sod land. Much of the best tobacco land is obtained by breaking 

 up old bluegrass sod or new land. Two crops of tobacco are very 

 seldom grown in succession on the same land, while two successive 

 crops of corn are grown on from one- fourth to one-half of the corn 

 area, the rest of the corn and tobacco being followed by a small-grain 

 crop, usually wheat. Generally clover and timothy and occasionally 

 bluegrass are sown with cereal crops. Hay is then cut usually 1 or 

 2 years. 



The great irregularities in rotation are caused by the length of 

 time the land remains seeded down. Occasionally a field will be 

 sown to clover and turned again at the end of the year. If timothy 

 or other grass seeds be sown the land may remain in grass several 

 years, and if a good bluegrass sod develops it may remain in pasture 

 30 to 40 years. The more common practice, however, is to leave rota- 

 tion crop land seeded down from 2 to 5 years. 



The type of farming practiced seems to influence the crop rotation 

 to some extent. On the tobacco farms corn follows corn least fre- 

 quently, and the land seldom remains in grass more than 3 years. 

 As the farms increase in size through the various types to the large 

 stock farms with no tobacco, two crops of corn in succession will be 

 raised on about 50 per cent of the corn land, and the time the land 

 remains seeded down lengthens to from 3 to 6 years and frequently 

 longer. The rotation period for the stock farms, therefore, gener- 

 ally ranges from 5 years to 9 or more years. 



SOIL. 



The soil of the bluegrass country is derived from limestone which 

 is comparatively rich in lime phosphate. The typical bluegrass soil 

 is reddish-brown or chocolate color. According to the United States 



