Book Description
Over 2 million square miles of North America is covered in prairie, comprising the largest ecosystem on the continent. The prairies are the heartland of the continent, a vast, windswept plain that flows from Alberta south to Texas and from the Rockies east to the Mississippi River. This is big sky country, and until recently, one of the richest and most magnificent natural grasslands in the world. Today, however, the North American prairies are among the most altered environments on Earth. Thorough, detailed, and scientifically up-to-date, Prairie: A Natural History provides a comprehensive, nontechnical guide to the biology and ecology of this fabled environment, offering a view of the past, a vision for the future, and a clear focus on the present. Sidebars throughout highlight various grasslands species, tell fascinating natural history and conservation stories, and present the traditional Native American view of the prairie and its inhabitants.
Customer Reviews:
wonderfully written and informative .......2007-01-30
I found this to be a well written, high quality book that should prove to be a great read for anyone. The language is easy to understand which makes it a good leisure read but at the same time it provides a wealth of information about wildlife, habitats, environments, and interactions that, as a grad student, I still found very interesting and informative.
Home on the Range..........2006-03-23
I love the prairie, no doubt about that, and I'm proud to have been born and raised in the vast expanse of the middle of the great continent. The prairie brings a unique feeling of solitude, quietude, and openness that can be found not many places else in the world. I fully recommend this book to those that love the prairie, but also to those who are not interested at all in the vast expanse, who, as the book asserts, would rather get across it as quickly as possible. Scientifically and emotionally written, it is a beautiful book, with many illustrations, one that is worthy to be read.
Very pleased.......2005-08-15
The book is very well written, and the many artful photos in the book really make me wish I could spend a whole summer in the prairies. The author knows what she's talking about for certain. I could just keep on reading such educating books.
Prairie: NOT the Great American Desert.......2005-08-05
An excellent book. Well written and scientifically accurate. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is enchanted with the beauty and grandeur of the North American prairie.
A Reverant Book On A Little Known Region.......2004-10-20
The Great Plains of the North America extend from Alberta to Texas and from the Rockies to the Mississippi river. It's the heartland of America.
This book, profusely illustrated and reverantly written is the story of the heartland. While it is the story of people, it's more the story of the land itself. It's the story of ancient seas, of Tyannosaurus Rex, Triceratops, and grass. Grass, seemingly engless miles of grass. Tall grass, short grass, drought resistent grass, food for the buffalo that wandered here in vast herds.
Of course the book talks about man's impact on the land. Farming plants a handful of crop species, where 5,000 wild plants grow in the Great Plains.
The future has to be discussed in a book like this, and for once the news is not all bad. To be sure, there are species at risk, but the overall picture is certainly one of hope.
A fascinating book on an area that is rarely thought about, let along the subject of books.
Book Description
"Interwoven tightly within the fabric of this abused and worn-out land are countless stories of the people who wrestled a living here. Many of the stories are forgotten and many more are untold; I feel fortunate that I was allowed to hear some of them."-from the Introduction
In its prime, the Texas Blackland Prairie cut a swath of twelve million acres across the state from near San Antonio north to the Red River. Perhaps less than one-tenth of one percent of this vast prairie remains-small patches tucked away here and there, once serving as hay meadows or sprouting from rock too stony to plow.
Matt White's connections with both prairie plants and prairie people are evident in the stories of discovery and inspiration he tells as he tracks the ever-dwindling parcels of tallgrass prairie in northeast Texas. In his search, he stumbles upon some unexpected fragments of virgin land, as well as some remarkable tales of both destruction and stewardship.
Helping us understand what a prairie is and how to appreciate its beauty and importance, White also increases our awareness of prairies, past and present, so that we might champion their survival in whatever small plots remain.
Customer Reviews:
Impressive Historic Perspective.......2007-04-21
I normally don't care for historic perspectives, but this book really came alive for me. I grew up in Hunt County and now live in Dallas County, so essentially he's describing my back yard. It's a great combination of science, naturalist perspective, and personal emotional input. It's definately a great book for anyone's library.
Inspiring, unsettling, thought-provoking, and generally just a good read.......2007-03-28
A great book to understand the natural history of the Blackland Prairie region of North Texas! It is a must-read for rural landowners, naturalists, educators, and even yard-watering suburbanites with foundation problems. It will help you know, love, and comprehend our shifting soils and other natural elements around us. I've recommended Matt White's book to many locals as a great read, including my book club in the Dallas area. It gave me a new and insightful view of the fascinating land around us. Anyone who says North Texas and the Dallas area is flat, ugly, and treeless should read this book... and see if you look at the land around you just a bit differently.
Incredible book about tragedy and hope on the Blackland Prairie.......2006-04-12
The Blackland Prairie, part of Texas' tallgrass prairies, once occupied 12 million acres of Texas, from the Red River near the Oklahoma border, south through Dallas, Waco, Temple, and Austin down to San Antonio. The tall prairie grasses and flowers created extremely rich soils, which led to most of the Blackland Prairie being plowed for agriculture.
Perhaps only one-tenth of one percent of Texas' beautiful Blackland Prairie remains in native hay meadows or places too rocky to plow, and many of these endangered places are slowly disappearing over time to the plow and development.
There are people who care about the prairie and search for remnants of the Blackland, hoping to find a special piece of what was and experience it as those who first came to Texas did and maybe even protecting some of the ever decreasing gems that remain. Matt White is one of these people, and he tells an incredible tale of both destruction and hope in Prairie Time - A Blackland Portrait.
Matt recounts the natural and human history of the Blackland Prairie, mixing information about settlers, families, Native Americans, animals, birds, and native plants in a very readable account. He tells heartwarming stories of people appreciating and protecting their prairies with land trusts and local governments, and heartbreaking stories of prairies being plowed and destroyed.
As author of Birds of Northeast Texas, Matt also relates the plight of the grassland birds that make the prairie their home and how the destruction of most of the Blackland Prairie has affected them. The tragedy of the Prairie Chicken and the declining populations of Le Conte's Sparrow, Bell's Vireo, and other grassland birds raise the alarm of habitat loss and the affect of the prairie's destruction upon wildlife.
Matt also lets us experience the excitement of finding out about previously unknown hay meadows and, along with other prairie friends (many of whose names which you may recognize and know), meeting the owners and seeing the prairie remnant for the first time. He also describes many of the protected prairies, telling us about the special native plants, animals, and birds that live there.
Matt ends with a statement of hope, inspiring us to protect as many pieces of the Blackland Prairie that remain and that more rare gems of native prairie may be waiting for us to discover them.
Prairie Time - A Blackland Portrait by Matt White is highly recommended, especially to anyone interested in prairies, native plants, birds, wildlife, natural and Texas history, environmentalism, and conservation.
To learn more about Texas prairies, visit the Native Prairies Association of Texas at http://texasprairie.org/ or contact: Native Prairies Association of Texas, 2002 - A Guadalupe St. PMB 290, Austin, TX 78705-5609 .
Average customer rating:
- A lyrical book about a fragile habitat
- Sandhills Classic
- A lovesong to an alluring, little-known place
- When a book makes you dream about a place you've never been.
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The Last Prairie: A Sandhills Journal
Stephen R. Jones
Manufacturer: International Marine/Ragged Mountain Press
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Similar Items:
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Peterson Field Guides: The North American Prairie (Peterson Guides)
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Old Jules (Third Edition)
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Prairie: A Natural History
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The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
ASIN: 007135347X |
Amazon.com
Running 100 miles from north to south and 200 miles from east to west, the Sandhills make up about a quarter of the state of Nebraska and constitute the largest grass-stabilized dune field in the Western Hemisphere. Sparsely settled, the region has inspired a fine literature, numbering books by Jim Harrison, Mari Sandoz, and Merrill Gilfillan, among other writers.
Stephen Jones's The Last Prairie is a welcome, elegant addition to that library. An inspired blend of science, natural history, ethnography, and memoir, it recounts Jones's travels along the Niobrara River and deep into the heart of dune country--once the province of buffalo, cranes, and scattered bands of Pawnee and Cheyenne Native Americans, now the site of huge ranches and, as Jones notes, an army of white-tailed deer and other former denizens of wetland forests that edged out onto the plains with the disappearance of large predators. "When it comes to ecosystem disturbances," Jones notes, "the white-tailed deer are just the tip of the iceberg," and indeed the Sandhills are threatened at every turn by industrial agriculture and other manifestations of putative progress. Jones considers some of the programs that have been advanced to save the area, including the apparently ill-advised "Buffalo Commons" preserve that residents fear would make the region an unnatural zoo; he suggests instead a more modest prairie preserve that would attract tourists and provide new revenue for the region's residents, now dependent on ecologically destructive ranching.
But Jones's book is less a program for action than a literate, attractive celebration of a place unlike any other--a book that will inspire readers to go and have a look for themselves. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
It is an area that has captivated and inspired travelers, philosophers, and artists for centuries. Long celebrated as one of the most visually stunning regions of the American landscape, it is also one of the most historically significant. And now, this vast, 25,000-square-mile expanse known as the Nebraska Sandhills is brought to life with passion, perspective, and ecological timeliness in an unforgettable collection by Stephen Jones.
The Last Prairie is an extraordinary triumph of the essayist's art. By turns graceful and penetrating, introspective and universal, ruminative and prescient, the 20 essays in The Last Prairie embodies the essence of Sandhills life. Jones delivers a series of riveting accounts of the Sandhills, flora and fauna, wildlife, and rich cultural history. Fascinating descriptions of bald eagles, trumpeter swans, and the annual migratory flight of a half-million sandhill cranes stand alongside equally vivid accounts of trailblazing homesteaders, range wars, and devastating prairie fires. Jones speaks eloquently to such timeless themes as humanity's search for community and the ties that bind man and nature.
Customer Reviews:
A lyrical book about a fragile habitat.......2001-06-26
Mr. Jone's admiration, appreciation and concern for this very special ecosystem shines through this lovely book. In it, he intertwines Native American myth, Plains history and well researched scientific data into a cohesive and readable overview of the Sandhills of Nebraska.
Through his eyes, we visit and experience a landscape of beauty, solitute, history and rich wildlife. It is, in turns, thought provoking, humourous, enlightening, yet never preachy. Steve is most respectful of the current private owners of these lands, and integrates their ongoing stewardship into well reasoned suggestions to insure the long-term integrity of this fecund habitat for posterity.
Sandhills Classic.......2000-07-13
The Last Prairie: A Sandhills Journal is an astonishing blend of nature, myth, and love of the land--richly textured with wry wit and something very close to wisdom. It's so deeply rooted in love and its own particular landscape that it transcends locality and becomes universal. In other words, it's a classic, akin to Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Writing, details, and a sensibility to treasure.
A lovesong to an alluring, little-known place.......2000-06-17
Stephen Jones notes in the book that the Sand Hills of Nebraska make up one of the few "dark spots" on those wall posters featuring a satellite view of the United States at night. It is, truly, a wide open space, and he does the landscape great justice with his evident love for the land, its wildlife, its people and history.
For those who think Nebraska is simply home to a football team and endless acres of corn, "The Last Prairie" should open some eyes.
Jones is a prose poet. He makes the Sand Hills live and breathe right there on the page. An excellent, deeply-felt homage to one of America's little-known (thankfully?)great natural treasures.
When a book makes you dream about a place you've never been........2000-05-31
As often happens in Washington, DC, I got inside information. The author (my eighth grade history teacher) tipped me off about his book, before it was available. I got to read a "galley" I think it is called, and felt even more like an insider. It's exciting when a friend publishes a book, and when that friend telegraphs, with the sound in his voice, that this one might be something special. Steve knows. I read the hardback copy as soon as I got it. Growing up in Colorado gave me some appreciation of this majestic place to the East, which I now plan to visit for the first time. Stephen Jones has woven history, geography several sciences into a literary work of art, that can provide great inspiration, even to the uninitiated. His images are vivid, whether he is describing the hard-scrabble personalities that live there or the spirit-ghosts of Native Americans that have long since perished. His treatments of the landforms and myriad species of animals that dwell in the Nebraska Sandhills, are characteristically perfect. He has written a couple of other nature books, including one with his photos, called the Shortgrass Prairie.What many do not know about Steve is that he was diagnosed with a back problem before he undertook his arduous weeks long trips, the several hundred miles East. He would not want me to mention this, Steve is a low key guy. But his courage is, well, another story. I hope everyone who loves nature, and our vanishing wild places will read this book and be inspired and dream and go there.
Book Description
Prairies are among the most severely degraded ecosystems on the North American continent, with virtually no original prairie land extant in a pristine state. Because of the amount and severity of environmental damage visited upon them, prairies have become a proving ground for the fledgling craft of ecological restoration.
The restoration of ecosystems is a practical science, with little theoretical knowledge available to guide the work of practitioners. Information is acquired primarily through an arduous process of trial and error, and the need for sharing information is immense. The Tallgrass Restoration Handbook is thus an essential contribution to the literature.
The book is a hands-on manual that provides a detailed account of what has been learned about the art and science of prairie restoration and the application of that knowledge to restoration projects throughout the world. Chapters provide guidance on all aspects of the restoration process, from conceptualization and planning, to execution and monitoring. Specific chapters cover:
- conserving biodiversity
- restoring populations of rare plants
- plowing and seeding
- obtaining and processing seeds
- conducting burns
- controlling invasive plants
- animal populations
- monitoring vegetation and more
Other resources include a key to restoration options that provides detailed instructions for specific types of projects and a comprehensive glossary of restoration terms. Appendixes present hard-to-find data on plants and animals of the prairies, seed collection dates, propagation methods, sources of seeds and equipment, and more.
The Tallgrass Restoration Handbook is a state-of-the-art compendium that can serve a vital role as a sort of "parts catalog and repair manual" for the tallgrass prairies and oak openings of the Midwest. Written by those whose primary work is actually the making of prairies, it explores a myriad of restoration philosophies and techniques and is an essential resource for anyone working to nurture our once-vibrant native landscapes to a state of health.
Customer Reviews:
Just a reprint of 1997 edition.......2006-09-26
If you don't already have the original 1997 edition, then this is definitely a 5 star title. However, if you DO have the original, don't bother to buy this one. Despite the various developments mentioned in the preface to this 2005 edition -- advances in no-till planting techniques, restoration strategies for woodland wildflowers, methods for integrating native biodiversity into agriculture, and exploding Internet resources -- none are dealt with here. There is no updated information about weed problems and herbicides, despite the ongoing advance of invasives and development of new products. Lots has happened in the field in the decade since the prior edition was written, but you learn none of it here. This is just a reprint of the original -- and this is quite disappointing.
That said, what is covered is truly excellent. It just could have been far better with a thorough rewrite.
The Tallgrass Restoration Handbook : For Prairies, Savannas,.......2001-07-30
Let me just say that it is nice that someone wrote more than just what plants to use. It is fairly easy to find prairie journals and books that describe everything except how to implement your prairie project. Packard had the good sense to know that seeding rates and implementation techniques are necessary information.
Amazing.............2001-01-05
This is a top rate restoration hand book. Amazing amount of information from people who are out doing the work. It is a collection of essays/chapters written by the front-runners in the field. Everything you wanted to know from site selction to seed collection to fire management. Since it is written by actual prairie restorationists, not theorists it is practical and easy to understand. I will recomend it to everyone who is interested in the field.
The prairie restoration and management bible........1999-08-18
As a prairie biologist, I refer to this seminal volume frequently. It is the very best compendium of prairie restoration and management information.
Anyone who has been taken by the ecological romance of the tallgrass prairie, and hopes either to know in detail the ecology of these biomes, or to plant or manage one, needs to have this in the personal library. It's mostly technical, but wonderfully engaging for the "prairieophile." One doesn't really know the prairie until having read this book.
Book Description
¥ Step-by-step guide to prairie restoration from site selection through burning ¥ 20 color photographs ¥ Conservation guidelines from The Nature Conservancy ¥ Reference list of Midwest seed sources and services and books on prairie plant restoration and identiÞcation
Customer Reviews:
Prairie Reconstruction.......2007-01-12
This book provided an excellent introduction into the basic principles of prairie reconstruction. The book is concise, informative, well-written, and leaves the reader with a new appreciation of the prairie habitat. I purchased this book as an introduction to establishing prairie habitat on my own farmland, which is currently in the government "CRP" and "wetland restoration" programs. It enhanced my education and helped focus my efforts.
Average customer rating:
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The Prairie Falcon (Corrie Herring Hooks Series)
Stanley H. Anderson , and
John R. Squires
Manufacturer: University of Texas Press
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ASIN: 0292704747 |
Book Description
Skillful hunters beautiful in flight, Prairie Falcons inhabit the rocky cliffs of the American West. These raptors range from southern Canada and northern North Dakota to Baja California, Arizona, New Mexico, western and northern Texas, and southeastern Coahuila, Mexico. This is the first book for a wide audience devoted exclusively to the Prairie Falcon. Stanley Anderson and John Squires cover all aspects of the falcon's life history from mating and rearing young to hunting behaviors and the yearly migration cycle. They provide complete descriptive characteristics for identifying Prairie Falcons and also compare them to other raptors, especially the closely related Peregrine Falcon. In addition, the authors recount the long association of falcons with people, which may extend back as far as 2000 B.C. They describe the practice of falconry from the Middle Ages until today. And they assess the threats to Prairie Falcons posed by human activities, from pesticide use and destruction of habitat to disruption of the breeding cycle by careless birdwatchers.
Average customer rating:
- Look up a given prairie's location or basic facts quickly
- Makes me want to take a long road trip
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Prairie Directory of North America
Charlotte Adelman , and
Bernard L. Schwartz
Manufacturer: Lawndale Enterprises
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0971509603 |
Book Description
The book contains a comprehensive list of prairies that can be visited by the public in the United States and Canada organized by counties in each state in the United States and Provinces in Canada. Each entry has a short description of the area (geographically and environmentally such as the plants, birds and animals that can be seen at the sites) along with a brief description of how to find it. There are also phone numbers of entities (individuals or organizations) to contact for more detailed information.
The book also contains short introductory materials for the US and Canada describing genenerally what a prairie is and how it came about. Also there is a Table of Contents, illustrations, a glossary, index and bibliography.
There is no other book of its kind.
This book has also won the 2003 National Garden Club Illinois Tommy Donnan Certificates Publications award and the 2003 Garden Clubs' of Illinois' Award #53D.
Customer Reviews:
Look up a given prairie's location or basic facts quickly.......2002-08-09
Collaboratively written by Charlotte Adelman and Bernard L. Schwartz, Prairie Directory Of North America is an information packed, accessible, reader friendly, straightforward, ecological reference book filled cover to cover with the names, one-paragraph descriptions, and geographical locations of prairies found throughout the United States and Canada. The prairie listings are organized first by state (or Canadian province), then by county for easy reference. Telephone numbers for each prairie area's associated conservation board or similar organization are included. The Prairie Directory Of North America is an excellent, indispensable, highly recommended desktop reference for academicians, professionals, environmental activists, and non-specialist general readers needing to look up a given prairie's location or basic facts quickly.
Makes me want to take a long road trip.......2002-05-23
Not sure how it is that I was sent this book, but I found it in my mailbox on a dreary Seattle afternoon. Instantly I was flooded with memories of dewy summer mornings that promise to become hot sticky days; the smell of earth and sweet grasses rising with the humidity; the sounds of grasshoppers hopping, crickets chirping, skippers fluttering, big blue stem, bur oak, gamma grass all rustling from a breeze that seems to tug at me to follow it to the horizon.
Having grown up in Illinois where 99% of the original prairie landscapes are gone, it is a THRILL to see a 352 page directory of North American prairies. I found myself scanning this book's pages for restoration sites I did volunteer work on years ago and places I've visited. It's encouraging to see how many have been designated as nature reserves and parks. Of course many of the entries are also for very small, inevitably threatened rements of prairies. Perhaps this text will help to validate the existence of these small treaures and promote human awareness and stewardship.
This directory is nicely organized by U.S. States and Canadian Providences. Introductions for each state provide varying amounts of backround information, such as the types of prairies, geological history, current environmental/restoration/preservation concerns, and key plant and animal species. A few states are included, which aren't really prairie states, such as Oregon. The all too brief justification for including this state and it's two listings are that these sites look like prairies. That's good enough for me, but then I have to ask why my current home state of Washington was not included with it's steppes, plateaus and mima mounds. Oh well. Entries for each state are then provide within alphabetical county listings. One improvement might be to include each site by name in the index. I spent a long time trying to find individual prairies I knew by name, but couldn't recall the county they are in.
There is one map of central North America, a lack luster, black and white, bare-basic outline of states and providences, on which, author, Bernard Schwartz, appears to have colored in the "pre-settlement prairie bio-regions" with dark and light crayon. A far better map, perhaps with color/texture coded sub-regions, would have been a nice addition and not too hard to come by. However, on the facing page is one of my favorite prairie related illustrations, a diagram of prairie plants and their root systems. Other illustrations are black and white sketches of prairie flora, drawn by author Charlette Adelman. Like her husband's map they are a bit more abstract and amateurish than botanical, but I like them anyway, being recognizable representations of key species and having a 'heartland' essence of earthiness, simplicity, and beauty.
One problem of restoration is the long term management and monitoring of human activities on on prairie sites. Since the book serves as a guide to visit these natural areas, I would have liked it to have a introductory chapter on appropriate human usage and negative impacts (eg. harvesting seeds, herbs, disturbing/feeding wild life, pets, off-road vehicles, staying on trails, littering, etc., etc). Additional emphasis on invasive weed species and land- use threats with perhaps an apendix of references for state and federal weed/rare plant directories and protection agencies might enhance future additions.
A great reference for birders, botanists, conservationists, scientists, travelers, and anyone who believes that America is, first and foremost, a beautiful chunk of land.
Book Description
A collection of engaging and provocative essays, Prairie Soul extends the transcendental tradition of writers like Aldo Leopold and Annie Dillard. Entomologist and nature writer Jeffrey Lockwood writes about humans and insects from the grasslands of Wyoming, where he has lived and worked for almost two decades. Like Ed Abbey's Southwestern desert or Wendell Berry's rural Kentucky, Lockwood's home environment and study of grasshoppers form an interesting starting point for consideration of universal concerns and connections with the world at large. Lockwood thoughtfully examines:
• Spirituality and the place of religion in science
• The soulful connection between human beings and the places they live
• Grasslands and ecology
• The environment as common ground that transcends cultural and political boundaries
Prairie Soul is the story of one man's evocative journey of ecological, moral, and spiritual discovery, unfolding on the high plains of Wyoming and stretching to the grasslands of France and central Asia.
Possessing an extraordinary sense of harmony with these often forbidding and unforgiving landscapes, Lockwood's essays are paradoxical revelations, blending the deeply familiar with the profoundly exotic.
Amazon.com
In an exploration of the grasslands of North America that is both sweeping and intimate, Manning makes interesting connections between economics, botany, farming, and democracy. His discussion of the impact of romantic ideals of landscapes upon this biome is insightful, and his travels with botanists, biologists, buffalo and a visit to Ted Turner's ranch put faces and feet on the story. The message: by a careful reading of nature's design, we can more successfully inhabit this and all landscapes. Recommended.
Customer Reviews:
Audacious, Quirky Proposal - Warrants Serious Consideration.......2005-09-10
I have encountered few books like Richard Manning's Grassland. Manning's manifesto - reserved for the final chapters - is audacious, even quirky. Grassland's subtitle, The History, Biology, Politics, and Promise of the American Prairie, suggests a reasoned, broad-based analysis, and that is what Richard Manning provides. Nonetheless, his conclusions are breath-taking in their originality. My initial skepticism remains, but Manning does have me thinking about his proposal. Maybe, just maybe, he is on the right track.
The mountain wildernesses with their "charismatic megafauna", deserts, wild rivers, forests, seashores, and wetlands have little difficulty attracting environmental advocates, but how do the grasslands, the largest single biome in North America, fit into this picture?
Manning is slow to unfold his unorthodox proposals, preferring first to educate his readers. Thankfully, Manning's style is more narrative and anecdotal than pedagogical. His topics are wide ranging: Indian cultures, exotic weeds, Pleistocene extinctions, Jefferson's agrarian theory, disappearing aquifers, buffalo hunting, and industrialized farming.
Manning has definite opinions, but he is surprisingly fair; he clearly outlines and explains contrary ideas. I questioned some of his interpretations and occasionally even his facts, but all in all Manning's thesis appears credible.
I had some qualms about revealing Manning's manifesto in absence of his preparatory discussions. Even in context, his proposals are unexpectedly original. With caution, I proceed:
Richard Manning advocates eliminating large scale, industrialized farming and cattle ranching on America's extensive arid and semi-arid grasslands. Intensive single crop farming, largely wheat and corn production, is replaced by lower impact, multi-crop farming restricted to areas requiring less irrigation. Extensive irrigation stops. Intense fertilization stops. Land management concepts change. Free roaming bison replace cattle in the food chain. Non-native grasses that have largely displaced native species are eliminated.
Grassland is an exceptionally interesting book. As an earlier reviewer noted, Grassland will change the way we think.
Absolutely incredible piece of work.......2005-07-10
This is just a wonderful book on a part of our country that is "foreign" to many.I have recently been preparing a program on photograghy of the Great Plains and it"s as though the information in Grasslands is an answer to my prayer.It is literally packed with so much material so well presented that it should be required reading for all of our children and POLICY MAKERS IN GOVERNMENTS {particularly our current administration!!}.
Very interesting, a lot of information, can be slow reading.......2005-06-15
Part autobiographical (Manning writing about his travels around the nation learning about prarie restoration efforts), part biology textbook (telling about the types of flora & fauna that developed on the praries over time- and what has become of them),and part history ( the story of human involvement with the ecosystem).
Mr. Manning writes about the effects humans have had on the grasslands over the centuries, most of the really bad part coming since the railroad days and what is being done to remedy the effects of agricultural and other practices not really suited to the Plains. There is quite a bit of science in his writing, but it isn't too complicated, and a lot of opinion too. Manning does favor the use, in some cases, of chemicals to battle foreign plant species. He doesn't have much use for modern grain farming (not suited to the normal moisture patterns or maybe even the terrain) and considers beef cattle far too destructive for the land (he describes some of the effects the herds have had on the land- and what the buffalo(he favors hunting them but not to extinction) were like). He mentioned that while the old free range cattle ranching was harder on the environment that the buffalo herds (I think he advocated returning them) at least it was better than the current fenced in, likely to overgraze system.
I especially appreciated the details of how the buffalo herds were hunted down in the 19th century.
If the science is even half right (I feel that it probably is) something needs to be done to restore things in the Plains. I know that I've read in agricultural magazines that the west is experiencing a severe, and growing, groundwater shortage. You won't get the country to admit it ( he writes about the special interests) but so much of the land out there isn't suited for anything past what nature was doing with it we need to work with nature, not against it.
Anyone interested in the western grasslands and/ or the buffalo should consider getting a copy of this book.
Despite minor flaws, this book will change the way you think.......2005-03-17
First and most important, this book will change the way you think about the American prairie. I live here at the edge of the prairie near Indianapolis, and there are a few spots maintained as native prairie. Manning isn't talking about these little islands but about a huge, free ecosystem and the horrors that we have inflicted upon it and its fauna and flora. I confess that the image of grizzlies chasing elk calves across the grassland is beguiling, and illustrates what we are missing. He makes a persuasive case that we need lots and lots and lots of grassland, maintained as such. Manning has a good story-telling sense, and a good eye for explaining the grassland. You will not look at the prairie in the same way again.
There are some nicely provocative bits. His vision of the prairie rests on bison ranching, with the animals eating native grasses without irrigation, fertilizer, or other capitalist agriculture. As if that's not controversial enough, he makes a serious case that a meat-and-leather prairie economy rests easier on the land than food crops such as wheat or corn. These crops have destroyed the prairie and harm the broader environment because of the extensive irrigation and fertilization required. Obviously, this strategy of making our agriculture conform to the land instead of forcing the land to conform to our agriculture would be a major change for Americans and others around the world..
Manning is not afraid to take the next logical step, and he makes a principled argument against vegetarianism. Eating free-range bison raised on natural grasslands, he argues, would sit more lightly on the ground and would probably use less (petroleum-based) energy. This is not your conventional environmentalist, to say the least.
Despite those strengths, the book is weakened by a modest number of trivial errors of fact. These come in sidebar comments about irrelevant matters and have nothing to do with grassland, so I'd rather not list them here. They did make me question the accuracy of his reporting on grassland, though. I wouldn't rely on this book as your sole source of facts, but Manning's vision and wonderful writing make it an invaluable book nonetheless.
Excellent, unassuming, deftly woven.......2004-03-11
I picked up this book on a whim from The Book Thing of Baltimore, where I work as a volunteer shelving donated books so our patrons can find what they want (we give away books for free). Its cover caught my eye. I am so glad I did, because what I found was a fascinating and gripping book on something I never had really given two thoughts to: America's grasslands.
At first I wondered how on earth you could write an entire book about grassland. Now I wonder how he managed to fit so much information in such an easy to digest book. Manning is not just passionate about conservation (and the right kind of conservation), he's a tremendously writer as well, and he weaves the story of middle America's lands into an amazing tapestry. You can tell his point of view on all of the subjects, but he doesn't let it interfere with the quality of the work -- he does not demonize "the bad guys," but portrays them as normal humans struggling to survive. Somehow he starts off with very early ecological history, the beginnings of human civilizations in northern America, and ends up with modern day efforts to bring back the grasslands and all the while keeping the story lively and the reader interested.
I highly recommend this book. It will open your eyes.
Average customer rating:
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Prairie Conservation: Preserving North America's Most Endangered Ecosystem
Manufacturer: Island Press
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1559634286 |
Book Description
The area of native prairie known as the Great Plains once extended from Canada to the Mexican border and from the foothills of the Rocky Mountains to western Indiana and Wisconsin. Today the declines in prairie landscape types, estimated to be as high as 99%, exceed those of any other major ecosystem in North America. The overwhelming loss of landscape and accompanying loss of species constitute a real threat to both ecological and human economic health.
Prairie Conservation is a comprehensive examination of the history, ecology, and current status of North American grasslands. It presents for the first time in a single volume information on the historical, economic, and cultural significance of prairies, their natural history and ecology, threats, and conservation and restoration programs currently underway. Chapters cover:
- environmental history of the Great Plains
- the economic value of prairie
- prairie types-tallgrass, mixed grass, shortgrass, wetlands-and the ecological processes that sustain each type
- prairie fauna-invertebrates, fish and other aquatic creatures, amphibians and reptiles, birds, and mammals
- conservation programs such as the Great Plains Partnership, Canada's Prairie Conservation Action Plan, the U.S. Prairie Pothole Joint Venture, and others
The book brings together knowledge and insights from a wide range of experts to describe and explain the importance of prairies and to position them in the forefront of North American conservation efforts. Praire Conservation is an essential reference for anyone interested in prairie ecology and conservation and will play a critical role in broadening our awareness and understanding of prairie.
Customer Reviews:
No house to be found!.......2000-12-08
I read the whole thing cover to cover and there wasn't one mention of the little house or Laura Ingles. What a waste of time.
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