Land Values in the Blue Grass and Nashville Basins

It HE upland quality of the general regional slope of the _._LAppalachian Plateaus is interrupted in Kentucky and Tennessee by lowlands of unusual size and importance. The Kentucky lowland is the Blue Grass country, famous for its rich limestone soils and its nutritious blue grass; the Nashville lowland or Central Basin is of equal importance, though it for some reason never gained such general renown' (Fig. 1). The implied assumption that these two regions should be equally renowned is based on certain wellknown facts regarding them. Both regions are topographic basins. Both basins were developed by the erosion of structural domes. Both are underlain chiefly by rocks of Ordovician age and are surrounded by rims of Mississippian rock. Both have residual soils resulting largely from the decomposition of Ordovician limestones. The soils of both regions have the reputation of being quite fertile and capable of supporting rich growths of blue grass. The fact that the two regions are near together and are both in the Interior Low Plateau Province makes any considerable climatic difference seem improbable. How then can one explain the statement that the Nashville Basin has for some reason never gained such general renown as the Blue Grass Basin? There is no doubt that the latter been mentioned much more frequently in the literature and is much oftener pointed out as an agricultural district par excellence. This difference in the reputation of the two districts is borne out by a comparison of the land values based on the 1925 Census of Agriculture (Fig. 2). Thus, only one of the Nashville Basin counties a land value greater than $50 per acre (Davidson County, in which Nashville is located, $74 per acre) while over half (19 out of 34) of the Blue Grass Basin counties have a land value exceeding $50 per acre, two counties have a land value per acre of between $100 and $150, and one, Fayette, $154. (For identification of the various counties, see Fig. 3.)

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