Prairie Works

Prairie Works owner, Cory Ritterbusch, has published a new book:  H.S. Pepoon: Pioneer Conservationist of Northwest Illinois, is now available at many retail outlets in the Tri-State area and can be ordered here. Fans of Prairie Works should find this book very interesting. Below is it’s first review.

H.S. Pepoon: Prophet and Polymath

“To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing” – William Butler Yeats

Yeats could not have had Herman Silas Pepoon (1860-1941) in mind when he wrote his famous poem, but he may as well have. Pepoon, arguably one of the most gifted botanists of his era, has been all but ignored by historians and scientists alike. A prophet without an audience, he remained in isolation, a curio piece of Midwestern gentility.

But Pepoon’s luck is about to change and his work to be acknowledged. Cory Ritterbusch, of Shullsburg, Wisconsin, has rescued Pepoon from anonymity in his new book H.S. Pepoon: Pioneer Conservationist of Northwest Illinois. In doing so he establishes Pepoon as a touchstone of the natural history of Illinois and iconic of the Driftless Area.

Born in Jo Daviess County, Illinois in 1860, Pepoon set out as early as the mid 1870’s to record and document the cornucopia of Illinois plants, prairies and forests in Jo Daviess County. His works anticipate and make way for the likes of Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Wendell Berry and others. His prose is richly evocative of the beauty he captures, a beauty he warns is endangered by the militant indifference of the putative stewards of the land. (See Destruction of a Farm Flora 1904 and Ecological Survey of the Driftless Area 1906)

In these early essays Pepoon limns the passion and conviction of Ralph Waldo Emerson in conveying the sense of mourning at the passing of the Illinois prairie, a victim of “soulless corporations,” of industry, of aggressive agriculture and public apathy. He writes of the prairie in elegy and in a way that is unimprovable by anybody’s art:

“The days are gone, the men are largely passed on, the flowers have disappeared, and into our hearts a feeling of sadness comes to realize that never again can these things be.”

The loss is all the greater because of the iconic status the Driftless Area would take on as a near geological singularity in North America. For Pepoon there was a clear message here, a counterpoint to a ceaseless and slave-like dependence on the utilitarian and quotidian. According to Pepoon, the “man who drinks in the hand of nature is not a wrecker of the commonwealth or a despoiler of his best interests.” He cares rather about the “higher qualities of the mind and soul,” and understands that the leisure induced by nature is the source of all civilization. In this regard Pepoon prepares a message that the twentieth century German philosopher, Josef Pieper will fully develop.

In his most fecund period, 1895-1935, Pepoon devotes a great deal of time to the study of the Birds Eye Primrose plant along the bluffs of the Apple River in Jo Daviess County. He provoked a minor controversy among botanists at the time who were unwilling to accept that the Primrose flourished in Jo Daviess County. Pepoon carried the argument in showing that the Primrose survived and thrived in northern Illinois latitudes precisely because the area had been spared by the glaciers millennia ago.

It was to the Apple River Canyon that Pepoon turned to argue the cause for the establishment there of a state park. He referenced the imposing, Primrose-laden bluffs reaching nearly one hundred feet and the many peculiarities and features of the Apple River environs typical of the Driftless Area. A park would serve as nature’s refuge and offer the working man and woman a release from the press and sometime banality of every day life. He was persuasive before the Illinois Academy of Sciences and ultimately before the court of public opinion, with the result that the state of Illinois set aside three hundred acres surrounding the Apple River. Today’s park bears no evidence whatsoever of Pepoon’s role in its creation.

Pepoon was an eccentric, an Emersonian, and possessed an intellect that matched his passion for nature and love of his fellow man.  To his calling as botanist he soon added that of a physician and teacher. For thirty-eight years he combined teaching at Chicago’s Lake View High School with a practice of medicine and his writing on Midwest botany. He was both pioneer and polymath and one whose kind we are not likely to encounter again soon. Perhaps the publication of this book by Ritterbusch will stir some to see Pepoon gets his due, if perhaps by the placing of a plaque in his honor at the Apple River Canyon State Park. History and justice would be well served by the gesture.

H.S. Pepoon: Pioneer Conservationist of Northwest Illinois, designed and published as a period piece, is remarkable in its own right as a special publication that reflects and comprehends the substance of the writings of Pepoon. There is an informative, luminous Foreword by William Handel of the Illinois Natural History Survey that presents Pepoon in full character and joie de vivre, to which publisher Ritterbusch lends his own music to the dance.

Robert J. Klaus

- Robert Klaus is past President of the Illinois State Historical Society and the Illinois Humanities Council.

More info here: www.prairieworksinc.com/pepoon-book/

To have your book mailed to you, email Cory and request your copy:  info@prairieworksinc.com or it’s available on Amazon.

When researching the flora of Northwest Illinois there is one man’s name that repeatedly shows up: H.S. Pepoon. More well known in Chicagoland, Pepoon was a native of Northwest Illinois, was the first professional botanist to study the area’s flora and is responsible for the creation of Apple River Canyon State Park.

His father, George Pepoon, was a Lieutenant in the Civil War, a member of  the famed 96^th Infantry from Galena, IL. He was the Superintendent of Schools for Jo Daviess County as well as the Warren Township Assessor. Pepoon School on Twin Bridges Road is named after him. Herman Silas Pepoon was born to George and Mary Pepoon in Warren, Illinois on January 21, 1860.

Herman grew up south of Warren, IL and attended Warren High School (1877).  He left for Champaign to attend the The University of Illinois, graduating with a degree in Natural History (1881). After graduating from Hahnemann Medical College in 1883 he became a doctor and practiced medicine from 1883 until 1892 in Nebraska and Lewistown, IL. In 1892 he left Lewistown and the medical profession to become a botany instructor at Lake View High School in Chicago. He held that position for 38 years until he retired in 1930, when he reached the limit age of 70 years old.

Pepoon was highly influential among his peers and the community. He inspired thousands of students at Lake View High School in Ravenswood, taking them on field trips and hosting Saturday classes on a wide variety of subjects.  Joel Greenberg wrote in his book Of Prairie, Woods, & Water: Two Centuries of Chicago Nature Writings, “[Pepoon] always struck me as an unusual person if for no other reason rather than he abandoned medicine to teach science at a Chicago public school. No doubt this gave him greater freedom to botanize, but he apparently truly valued his role as a teacher to be a “molder of character.”

One student he “molded” was Alfred Caldwell, who became one of the country’s great landscape architects, blending natural materials and native plants into his work, which includes Eagle Point Park in Dubuque, IA. Another was Frank Caleb Gates, who became the Director of the Missouri Botanical Garden and had other accomplishments in botany.

Over the course of his tenure at Lake View he had over ten thousand students. Each of these, according to V.O. Graham (a peer at Lake View), was touched by his distinguished pedagogue: “His buoyant spirit changed work from drudgery to joyous effort.” Upon his retirement from teaching the Lake View Alumni Association said of him, “He has made botany a beautiful and popular subject.”  The gardens Pepoon kept at his Chicago home attracted thousands of visitors annually.

Doctor Pepoon died December 26, 1941. Today his work is often cited during deep research. However, there are no memorials to him, no parks in his name, no awards given in his honor.

Today, Pepoon is best known for his work out of the classroom. His books, Representative plants; a manual for the use of students of botany in secondary schools and colleges (1900) and Representative Plants (1912) are still being used as student references today. An Annotated Flora of the Chicago Region (1927) is widely referenced by ecologists in Chicagoland and served as the predecessor to the popular Plants of the Chicago Region (Swink & Wilhelm), first published in 1969. Beginning in his days as a medical doctor and continuing throughout his life, he published numerous papers in varying capacities.

Several of these papers dealt with the flora and ecology of Northwest Illinois, including Cliff Flora of Jo Daviess County (1909), The Forest Associations of Northwest Illinois (1910), Peculiar Plant Distributions (1916), The Primrose Rocks of Illinois (1917), The Flora of the Driftless Area (1918), A Proposed State Park (1919), The Forest Lands of Jo Daviess County (1920) and The Flora of the Rights of Way of the Illinois Central Railway: Waddams to East Dubuque (1927).

Pepoon's Sketch of NW Illinois (1918)

Pepoon’s observations are very important to us because of the time period and his amazing attention to detail. During the height of his documented trips back home to Northwest Illinois (1900-1920) the un-farmed portions of the county were in relatively good condition and his observations showed intact ecosystems before they degraded and before non-native and invasive species became so dominant. He was able to recount images from his past and those from a previous generation to offer a timeline of land use change. For instance he writes, “The writer is informed by old settlers that in those days there was very little underbrush except in moist places, and that one could ride in any direction through the timber without difficulty.”

Pepoon used a camera for the first time to capture images of the landscape. His pictures of Apple River Canyon and the bluffs above Savanna, IL are important to have today as they offer a glimpse of what the landscape looked like a century ago.

In 1918 at Jacksonville, IL Pepoon made a pitch to the Illinois Academy of Sciences to have a state park formed in the Apple River Canyon down the road from his boyhood home, the first step in turning his vision into a reality. In 1932 the state purchased that land. Pepoon was intimately familiar with the area from his boyhood days and he discovered the Bird’s-Eyed Primrose (Primula mistassinica) there on April 5, 1905. This was a groundbreaking discovery that met much skepticism from the scientific community, although many botanists traveled to see this plant in person, a pilgrimage that continues today.

In his 1919 paper, A Proposed New State Park, Pepoon closes by describing the possibilities for Northwest Illinois: “It is earnestly urged that all who can visit this region, and learn firsthand what it has to offer of beauty and wildness, recreation and rehabilitation for all the care-worn, business fagged, mentally benumbed citizens of our great commonwealth, who here may come to renew themselves with might in the inner and outer man.”

Some fifty-plus years before the area began to serve as a get away for recreation, tourism and relaxation Pepoon was already envisioning that process. A true visionary and leader, indeed.

Today, is a rare day indeed. Our country and the world can celebrate the 200th anniversary of the births of two very important individuals. What are the odds of two people of such profound influence being born on the same day?  Some of our better cultural creatives have been calling this ‘Lincoln Darwin Day’ for a while. But it is reaching a widespread audience today, and deservedly so. These two individuals are arguably the 19th century’s most important figures and both have influenced natural history, the topic of this blog. 

It was 46 years ago this month that the groundbreaking book Silent Spring was published. Written by Rachel Carson , Silent Spring was published in September of 1962 and is credited to starting the modern environmental movement. Rachel Carson, a marine biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, exposed the detrimental effects of the pesticide D.D.T. 10 years after the release of Silent Spring D.D.T. was banned and it served as the catalyst for reviving a struggling Bald Eagle population as well as many other birds.

The book’s title was inspired by the John Keats poem ”La Belle Dame sans Merci“ which contained the lines “The sedge is wither’d from the lake, and no birds sing” spent weeks on the New York Times best seller list, was a ‘Book of the Month’ club offering and was endorsed by then Supreme Court Justice, William O. Douglas. It spurred many other environmental awareness books and set the tone for an environmental movement. Of course it would come against great critictism. Biochemist and former chemical industry spokesman Robert White-Stevens stated, “If man were to follow the teachings of Miss Carson, we would return to the Dark Ages, and insects and disease would once again inherit the earth.” Several industry representatives insisted that Silent Spring was part of a communist plot to ruin U.S. agriculture.

In response to the critictism of Silent Spring, U.S. President John F. Kennedy directed his Science Advisory Committee to investigate Carson’s claims. Their investigation “vindicated” Carson’s work, and lead to an immediate strengthening of the regulation of chemical pesticides. The book stated that uncontrolled pesticide use led to the deaths of animals and especially birds, but also humans. Although some scientists had raised cautionary flags, most americans were unaware of how sythetic chemicals poisoned the environment until Silent Spring. The books obvious passion about the inherit dangers in the excessive use of herbicides and pesticides ignited the imaginations of an attentive audience.

Carson writes: I contend, furthermore, that we have allowed these chemicals to be used with little or no advance investigation of their effect on soil, water, wildlife, and man himself. Future generations are unlikely to condone our lack of prudent concern for the integrity of the natural world that support all life.

Carson passed away shortly after Silent Spring was published in April of 1964. She was granted a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980, had a postal stamp with her image, Time magazine listed her  one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century.

Anyone who participates in annual Bald Eagle watching owes thanks to Rachel Carson and her 46 year old book Silent Spring.

http://www.rachelcarson.org/

http://www.nrdc.org/health/pesticides/hcarson.asp NRDC Article

http://www.reason.com/news/show/34823.html Article written for it’s 40th Birthday

Today, March 15, marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Liberty Hyde Bailey. Liberty Hyde Bailey was an American botanist, author and poet who wrote hundreds of books and scientific papers over a very long professional career. He coined the word ‘cultivar’, helped establish the 4-H program for kids, created agricultural extension offices, rural electrification, parcel posts, and is considered the father of rural sociology. President Theodore Roosevelt, appointed him to head The Commission on Country Life in 1908  for “the working out of the desire to make rural civilization as effective and satisfying as other civilization. ”

Liberty was born in South Haven, Michigan in 1858. He was educated at Michigan Agricultural College (now Michigan State) where he graduated in 1882. He went on to work for the famous botanist Asa Gray at Harvard University and was the Dean of Agricultural Sciences at Cornell University until he retired.  

Most of his work was produced after his retirement. From 1923 – 1953 he published hundreds of papers and books. He became a specialist in the systematics of plants, mainly Cyad (palms) and Rubus (blackberries). He also published revisions of Vitis (grapes), Brassica (cabbages and kales), Cucurbita (pumpkins and squashes), Hosta (plantain-lilies), and monographs on Dianthus, Delphinium, Campanula, and the gourds. He published over 100 papers on pure taxonomy. His writing skills so impressed George P. Brett, president of Macmillan and Co., that he told Bailey to send along the title whenever he had a book under way because Macmillan would publish anything he wrote. The books sold well; from his first book, The Horticulturist’s Rule Book, published in 1885, to his last, The Garden of Bellflowers, in 1953, almost one million copies sold.

From 1890 to 1940, Bailey edited 117 titles by 99 authors from all over the country, covering subjects in agronomy, rural economics, botany, pomology, animal husbandry, dairy issues, soils and fertilizers, plant pathology, commercial floriculture, and home economics. He edited the popular monthly magazine, American Garden, from 1890 to 1892, and Country Life in America, from 1901 to 1903. He originated many series of books, including Rural Life, Garden Craft, Open Country, Rural Science, Rural Text-Book, and Rural Manual. He published at least 1,300 articles in total.

Quite a body of work. He also encouraged women’s education in America, helping colleges turn co-ed. Because of his accomplishments, a number of buildings at Michigan State and Cornell University have been named for him. The Bailey Scholars Program which emphasizes trans-disciplinary learning for undergrads, designed to develop ”the whole person,” was initiated at Michigan State in 1998.

Liberty died on Christmas day, 1954 at the age of 97. Today, he is not very well known, but his influence is widespread. On the 150th anniversary of his birth, Liberty Hyde Bailey is very worthy of attention and recognition.

http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/state/whatwedo.html Illinois Extension Office

http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/bailey/cornellu/index.html A great interactive museum

http://lhbm.south-haven.com/ The LHB Museum

Today, February 25, marks the birthday of Rudolph Steiner, who was born 147 years ago (1861).  Rudolph Steiner was a german philosopher, scholar, educator, playwright and social thinker. He is credited as the founder of Anthroposophy, the Waldorf education system, the School of Spiritual Science and anthroposophical medicine. He fought for ethical individualism, brought eurythmy to the masses, became the poster child for esotericism and Adolph Hitler declared war on him in 1921. His invention of Bio-Dynamic Agriculture began a slow movement into the organic farming movement that we have today. Bio-Dynamic Agriculture is what makes him notable here.

Biodynamic Agriculture (BD ag) - Due to the decrease of soil and food qualities brought on by fertilizers and improper farming methods, Steiner began a series of 8 lectures to farmers at Silesia, Germany in 1924. The basis of the lectures spoke of composting, utilizing ‘on farm’ manures as fertilizers, extensive crop rotations and working the farm as one large organism. Steiner prescribed nine different soil preparations to aid fertilization which became the cornerstone of biodynamic agriculture. Associating astrology and moon cycles with specific applications was also a major part of BD ag.

Steiner’s advise was put into practice almost immediatly and soon the term Biodynamic was trademarked and a certification process was implimented in order to retain its strict order. In 1938 the Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association was founded in New York state. Today, BD ag is practiced in 50 countries. Its concepts have been widespread and it later spun into organic gardening and farming. Today, wines that are made using the Biodynamic process are a wine purists top choice and is a sector of the wine market that is gaining great popularity.

Although it is difficult to point to Steiners influence on ecology exactly. His holistic approach towards gardening is one shared by many environmentalists. It is safe to assume that he had a huge effect on todays “new” concepts of eating locally, reducing fertilizers and pesticides, growing organic foods and living an overall more sustainable lifestyle. If he were alive today he would be a great environmentalist and in great demand, as his 85 year old ideas now have a captive audience. Rudolph Steiner died shortly after his  Biodymanic lectures in March of 1925.

http://www.biodynamics.com/  Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association

http://www.angelicorganics.com/ CSA in Northern Illinois that practices BD Ag.

http://www.ecoworld.com/home/articles2.cfm?tid=388 Article on Biodynamic Wines

http://www.amazon.com Search for Steiner Books

“Ruhen Sie in Frieden” 

Last Thursday, my great uncle, Paul Schoenekaese of Liberty ILL, died at 82 years old. Not only was Paul my Grandfather’s brother, he was also a very close and special friend who is responsible for what I do today. The obituary from The Quincy Herald-Whig said that Paul was a lifelong farmer and hunter. Paul certainly was that, but much more.

Paul farmed the same farm where he was born in 1925. He used horses to do this until 1974, decades after most farmers began using tractors. Paul’s farm was very diverse with Pork, Beef, Poultry, Vegetables, Fruits and managed habitat areas for his fruitful hunting endeavours. Paul spoke very openly about the poor farming practices (as well as many other things) that area farmers were using and knew of the long-term destruction of chemicals on soils. His neighbors would apply nitrogen with tractors to fields while he applied manure with horses. Organic was not a word that he knew, but it was something that he had practiced for 60 years. Paul heated his home with wood, butchered his own meat, grew his food on site and utilized hunting seasons for sustenance, not for sport. The grocery store was simply for anything that could not be grown or processed on his own. He lived as sustainable a life as possible in today’s age.

A great botanist, Paul and I would contest each other in the identification of weeds on the property. I would tell him what the books call the weed and then he would tell me what they’re really called. He had a keen sense and observed an increase of invasive species on his ”ground” over his lifetime. He could tell you the exact year that a weed appeared for the first time. Paul became very interested in the restoration ecology that I spoke of and understood the principles behind it. He introduced me to Burton’s Cave nearby, because of the rare plants that he observed there.  

Paul took great pride in being a German Catholic. He served on the church board for decades and also attended mass daily. Paul was highly respected in Liberty Township.

Paul was buried next to my Grandfather and Great-Grandfather yesterday in Quincy Illinois. His wife survives.

Last Saturday, February 2nd, former Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz died at 98. Earl Butz was well known by environmentalists and not positively. He became a household name in the mid-1970s for reasons that were also not positive.

An Indiana native and person that Purdue University claims with great pride, Earl Butz was appointed secretary of agriclture in 1971 and carried that role until he was forced to resigned in 1976. During his five-year tenure as Ag Secretary he was responsible for many long-term effects on America.

Destruction of Natural Areas – Butz incensed naturalists by urging farmers to “plant from fencerow to fencerow.” With this implimented, some of our last remnant prairies were plowed, high quality wetlands were drained and thick treelines that served as habitat were bulldozed. This was the last crucial wave in natural area destruction and is still in many people’s memories. Locally, there became a sharp decline in wildlife numbers, mainly among birds.

Agri-business – Butz proclaimed that farming “is now big business” and that family farms must “adapt or die.” These policy shifts coincided with the rise of major agribusiness corporations, and the decline in financial stability of the small family farm. Agri-business was a term coined in the 1980s when the change had taken full effect.

Obesity - With larger quantities of corn being produced, Butz suggested that corn syrup should replace sugar cane. High-fructose corn syrup became the standard and very unhealthy sweetener. In Greg Critser’s 2003 book Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World, Critser points to Butz as the reason for obesity in America. Critser says,”In short, Butz had delivered everything the modern American consumer had wanted. Cheap, abundant and tasty calories had arrived. It was time to eat.”

Outside of the environmental and nutrition circles Butz will be remembered for his controversy. In 1974 he disturbed catholics by making fun of the Pope and in October of 1976 he was forced to resign after making racist comments while on a plane flight. Some say that it prevented Gerald Ford from being elected one month later.

Quite a testement to the power of agriculture in America and probably the only Secretary of Agriclture to ever become a household name…

 “As a society, we are just now beginning to realize the depth of Leopold’s work and thinking.”- Mike Dombeck, Chief Emeritus U.S. Forest Service

Today, January 11, marks the birth of Aldo Leopold (1887). Aldo Leopold was a highly influential environmentalist and is often credited for begining the environmental movement as early as the 1940s. He is a respected scholar, scientist, philiosopher and writer. Leopold influenced the begining of conservation education in schools, developed the first game management plans and his perspective on environemntal thought known as ’Land Ethic’ carved the way for land conservation, restoration ecology, sustainable farming, and proper land management practices in general. During his 61 years he published nearly 500 works including technical reports, speeches, textbooks, newsletters, reviews, and poems. But he is best-known for A Sand County Almanac, essays published 18 months after his death.

Aldo Leopold was born in Burlington, IA and his parents planted a Red Oak to commemorate his birth. His love affair with the outdoors was evident as a child and led him to Yale University School of Forestry, where he graduated with a masters in forestry in 1909.  Following Yale he worked for the U.S. Forest Service for 19 years. He left the Forest Service in 1928 and began doing independent contract work for land owners throughout the Midwest. In 1933 he was appointed Professor of Game Management in the Agricultural Economics Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (a first for the nation) and also published the first textbook in Wildlife Game Management. He was involved in the world’s first prairie restoration, now known as Curtis Prairie, at the UW-Madison Arboretum and bought a farm on the Wisconsin River near Baraboo, WI in 1935. At what he referred to as ”The Shack,” Leopold carried out several ecological experiments and it served as the setting for his many essays to come.

In 1941, Aldo began planning for a series of essays to be published to be enjoyed by all americans. Writtten from his “Shack” on his Baraboo farm, this series of essays was accepted for publishing by Oxford Press on April, 14 1948. One week later, on April 21st, Aldo Leopold died while fighting a wildfire on his Baraboo farm. Oxford Press released Leopold’s “Great Possessions” under the name “A Sand County Almanac” in 1949. 

Land Ethic – With over 2 million copies sold and translated into 9 languages A Sand County Almanac it is the most respected book about the environment ever published. Every proffesional conservationist points to this book as a catalyst for thier career, no matter in what capacity they work. The term ‘Land Ethic’ was coined in the final chapter of this groundbreaking book.  Leopold’s idea is that land is not a commodity to be possessed; rather, humans must have mutual respect for Earth in order to not destroy it. He also puts forth the idea that humans will never be free if they have no wild spaces in which to roam. Leopold also states the basic principle of his land ethic as, “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” and “The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land. The land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such.”

Like many pioneers and visionaries, their influence is not entirely appreciated or known until many decades later. It was not until the 1970s that his great book became well known with the begining of environmentalism. Today, the Leopold legacy is still gaining strength. In 2004 the state of Wisconsin declared the first weekend in March as Aldo Leopold days. The Baraboo, WI, “Shack” is a tourist site drawing thousands of visitors a year and recent biographies have elevated his status even further. From a scientific point of view, his approach of looking at all parts of the land as one whole system, and not catagorized into seperate parts, has recently been accepted by academia and is the train of thought now being instilled into conservation scholars today.

Historically, the overall appreciation for Leopold has mirrored society’s overall appreciation for nature. So we can only wish for his popularity to continue…

http://www.aldoleopold.org/  The Aldo Leopold Foundation

http://www.amazon.com/ Buy A Sand County Almanac

http://gargravarr.cc.utexas.edu/chrisj/leopold-quotes.html Excerpts from A Sand County Almanac

http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/about/aldo.htm Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

On the grounds of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum is Curtis Prairie. Curtis Prairie holds the unique title of being the world’s first prairie restoration. In the late 1920′s the university decided to take on an experiment in hopes of emulating a Midwest prairie for research and display. The history of this project is very important as this was the first prairie restoration and many of the techniques that we use today were learned here.

The first deliberate attempt to reconstruct an ecosystem began in 1933. The University acquired two farms West of the campus for the future arboretum and a 60-acre prairie site was chosen. The original prairie was broken there in 1836 and there were no signs of that prairie remaining. The idea was sprouted from wisconsin botanist Norman Fassett. In 1929  Dr. Theodore Sperry was chosen to direct the effort with the supervision of  Aldo Leopold and William Longenecker. Around 200 recruits from the Civil Conservation Corp (CCC) were used to execute three different types of planting. One, was collecting seed from prairie remnants along the Wisconsin River and inserting them into the ground. Another was to grow small seedlings in a nursery setting and plant them individually. The last, and most intensive, was to actually dig up prairie sod from remaining prairies and lay it in place. The results varied greatly as the seasonal timing was not known to be as important as it is today. In 1938, the first prairie plants that survived were blooming on the site. Between 1941 and 1946 John Curtis took over and began focusing on controlled burning in order to control invasive weeds which served to be very useful. He also began to study the effects of seed stratification from seed the he was collecting. Throughout his reign as Arboretum director Curtis began emphasizing the timings of the controlled burns and observed the differences. He continued with his prairie management experiments until his death in 1961. In 1962, the prairie was officially named Curtis Prairie in his honor. The experiments have never stopped. Today, soil scientists are using this site to determine weather soils can return to the pre-settlement health after the return of a prairie. So far the answer is, yes. Many invasive species control studies are carried out here as well studies on hydrology shifts and the creation of buffer zones.  

In the 1930′s a newspaper reporter asked Dr. Theodore Sperry how long it would take to complete the restoration, he replied “Roughly a thousand years.” I guess that still holds true. Today, this prairie restoration serves as a testament to the rewards of ecological restoration as a science. Thankfully, we have learned a lot since then and the experimental risks have been greatly reduced, but will never be eliminated. This experiment also reflects the University of Wisconsin and the entire state, as proof of its proggressiveness and its commitment to the environment.

http://uwarboretum.org/about/communities_collections/  UW Arboretum Site

We recently lost a great voice for and pioneer of native plant advocacy. The environmental First Lady was instrumental in putting native plants to use for reasons other than ecological restoration. The Beautification Act of 1965 was residue from her efforts to use plants on a large scale to fight pollution, renew urban areas, increase mental health and create a healthier highway infrastructure. Because of this bill, we now use 0.25 – 1 percent of funds allocated for highway landscaping for native trees, shrubs and plants of local orgin. After her white house years she moved her efforts to Texas where they set the benchmark for the use of native plants in a highway system. Lady Bird always spoke of the ecological and engineering purposes as benefits of native plants and their great beauty as a bonus. Texas is now known far and wide for the stunning color in its highway system when plants, such as Blue Bonnets, are in bloom. She eventually founded the National Wildflower Research Center in Austin in 1982. Lady Bird’s passion and ability to obtain results is respected by all conservationists today; she will be missed. Visit her research center here:  http://www.wildflower.org/