BULLETIN 397, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
July, when the}* are marketed. The most common practice is to 
winter the cattle as cheaply as possible and market them in the 
succeeding fall, when the grass begins to fail. That the quality of 
these steers is good is attested by the fact that many thousands of 
them have been exported. (Fig. 2.) 
With the exception of central Kentucky, most of the bluegrass 
lands are unsuited to general-crop farming. They are often too 
rocky or too steep to be plowed: yet these grazing lands sell readily 
for S75 to $150 an 
acre. (Fig. 3.) 
The mildness of the 
winters in this sec- 
tion, which allows 
grazing through most 
of the year and thus 
reduces the cost of 
wintering, is perhaps 
the principal reason 
why grazing is a more 
important industry 
here than in the re- 
gions farther north 
where blue grass is 
equally well adapted. 
There is very little 
bluegrass land for 
sale, and when an 
estate is put on the 
market it is usually 
purchased by citizens 
of the same eomrnii- 
nity. A well-bal- 
anced farm in the 
bluegrass region con- 
sists of enough tillable 
land to give a living 
to a family and produce sufficient forage to winter as many animals 
as can be pastured on the remainder of the farm. The grazing farms 
usually range from 300 acres upward. There appears to be no limit 
to the area of grazing land which a good business man can manage. 
There are manv farms of several thousand acres. 
Fig. 1. — Outline map of the eastern United States, showing by 
shaded lines the region where bluegrass pastures predominate. 
THE DIFFERENT GRADES OF BLUEGRASS PASTURES. 
There appear to be marked differences in the fat-producing quali- 
ties, of bluegrass. depending apparently on the character of the soil on 
which it is grown. Practically all of the grass-fed export cattle are 
