UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
% BULLETIN No. 397 
Contribution from the Bureau of Plant Industry 
WM. A. TAYLOR, Chief 
Washington, D. C. W September 20, 1916 
THE GRAZING INDUSTRY OF THE BLUEGRASS 
REGION. 
By Lyman Carrier, Agronomist, Forage- Crop Investigations. 
Page. 
Introduction 1 
The different grades 01 bluegrass pastures 2 
Effect of winter grazing on the sod 3 
Kinds of live stock raised 5 
Wintering the steers • 5 
Getting a sod 8 
CONTENTS. 
Page. 
Value of a pasture when grazed with cattle . . 9 
Value of a pasture when graced with sheep . . 11 
Maintaining the fertility of the soil 12 
The proper rate to graze 14 
Care of pastures 15 
The supply of stockers 17 
INTRODUCTION. 
Grazing bluegrass 1 with horses, mules, cattle, sheep, or hogs is the 
leading agricultural industry of southwestern Virginia, the adjoining 
sections of West Virginia and Tennessee, the northwest-central por- 
tion of West Virginia, and a large area of central and western Ken- 
tucky. For the sake of convenience, as well as to emphasize the 
importance of bluegrass in that area, this section of country is referred 
to in this bulletin as the " bluegrass region," a term which is often 
thus applied. (Fig. 1.) 
While pastures consisting in larger or smaller part of bluegrass cover 
about one-fourth of the improved farm land of the northern part of 
the Mississippi Valley and eastward to the Atlantic coast, the farm 
practice in utilizing these pastures over the greater part of that area 
differs considerably from that of the sections above mentioned. Fin- 
ishing beef cattle on grass, without grain, is not popular through most 
of the corn belt. Buyers usually discriminate against grass-fed 
stock; so while cattle may graze the pastures during the summer, they 
are either fed grain while on grass or are finished during the winter on 
grain. In the bluegrass region the cattle are finished on grass alone. 
Some farmers in this region feed sufficient grain during the winter to 
keep the 2 and 3 year old cattle gaining in flesh and graze them until 
i Pea pratensis. 
48131°— Bull. 397—16 1 
