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Letter To The Editor: Grazing On Public Lands: An Alternate View, William A. Laycock

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

The review of the 1996 report by the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST), title "Grazing on Public Lands," by Kathleen H. Keeler (Great Plains Research 7:356-357) was quite critical. As Chair of the CAST task force that researched and wrote the report, I am in a position to respond to the criticism and present an alternative view. Keeler suggested that the report: 1) lacked objectivity and presented an industry view of grazing on public lands; 2) was poorly documented, in spite of more than 240 references; 3) repetitive in presentation; and, 4) a waste of federal funds. …

Letter From The New Editor, Svata M. Louda

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

The "changing of the guard" at Great Plains Research brings a different perspective to the journal. With this change has come a shift in editorial emphasis that I hope will make GPR a new outlet for synthetic, multidisciplinary scientific research relevant to the plains. As the new Editor, my aim will be to increase the availability of important ecological, economic and social sciences research results with relevance to the understanding and management of the Great Plains.

This vast, ecologically rich and varied grassland region covers the whole interior of the North American continent, north from Texas to central Saskatchewan and …

Great Plains Research, Fall 1998 - Annual Index

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Annual index

Movie Theaters In The Maintenance Of Rural Communities In Kansas, Roy Christman

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

The population of rural towns in the Great Plains is generally declining. Between 1980 and 1990, over two-thirds of the 105 counties in Kansas lost population. The towns have been struggling with economic and demographic changes. In a number of Kansas towns, residents organized to save or refurbish their theaters. In this study I gathered information on the outcome of these activities from municipalities in Kansas in which a movie theater is owned by the town, the Chamber of Commerce, or a community group. Economic impact, fund raising activities, and volunteerism connected with the theater were explored. The results show …

Nuclear Dna Content And Chromosome Numbers In Switchgrass, Ku Lu, Shawn M. Kaeppler, Kenneth Vogel, K. Arumuganathan, D. J. Lee

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Switchgrass, Panicum virgatum L., one of the three dominant grasses of the North American tall grass prairie, is a genetically and morphologically diverse species with an array of ploidy levels, or set of chromosomes, and ecotypes. The relationship between DNA content and ploidy level has been controversial. The objectives of this study were to provide clear photodocumentation of switchgrass chromosome numbers and to clarify the relationship between nuclear DNA content and chromosome number. Defining the relationship between ploidy level and nuclear DNA content will facilitate the use of molecular biology techniques, such as flow cytometry, in plant breeding and evolutionary …

Local Greenhouse Gas Emissions In Southwestern Kansas, Douglas G. Goodin, John A. Harrington, Jr., Gerold I. Holden, Jr., Brian Witcher

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Recent international agreements for controlling emissions of greenhouse gases have focused the attention of both the climate research and policy communities on strategies for reducing the production and emission of these radiatively active substances. Most approaches have adopted a "top down" perspective, where mitigation strategies are framed at the level of national governments. However, emissions occur at local, rather than national scales. We describe a study aimed at documenting greenhouse gas emissions from a local area in the High Plains of southwestern Kansas that is currently undergoing marked economic change and population increase in response to restructuring of the meat …

Review Of U.S. Agricultural Response To Income Taxation By Hoy F. Carman, Allen L. Frederick

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Hoy F. Carman has produced a useful volume on the economic relationships between production agriculture and the V.S. tax system. Focusing on individual income taxes, he also gives brief attention to other federal taxes, including social security, estate, and corporate income levies.

The book should interest academics (particularly those specializing in public finance, farm management, and agricultural policy), policymakers, professional farm managers, and agricultural leaders. Citing and describing a large number of academic studies completed since about 1960, Carman masterfully reports and integrates their results. Perhaps more importantly, he uses his own considerable knowledge to measure both the strengths and …

Review Of The Desert Grassland Edited By Mitchel P. Mcclaran And Thomas R. Van Devender, Rob Mitchell

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

The Desert Grassland examines the complexities of an extremely diverse community. Although focusing specifically on desert grassland systems, it offers an excellent overview of the structure and function of grassland ecosystems on the whole, making it a resource for academicians, land managers, and laypersons in more mesic environments. The volume also functions well as a guide for inquisitive tourists.

Nine chapters grouped under four sections make up the book's organization. Section One (chapters 1 and 2) functions primarily as an introduction to desert grasslands. Their formative history is the focus of Section Two (chapters 3, 4, and 5). Section Three …

Review Of The Explorers' Texas: The Animals They Found By Del Weniger, David O. Ribble

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

As a mammalogist residing in central Texas, I often try to imagine the great diversity and abundance of mammals present in this state prior to western settlement. There are of course legendary accounts in Texas history and folklore of some of the larger mammals, such as buffalo, bears, and wolves, but I know of no book that systematically recounts the historical distribution, abundance, and behavior of what was once an amazing collection of mammals. Del Weniger's study takes its place as such a unique and well-researched account. This is the second volume of his research, the first covering The Land …

Review Of North American Exploration: A Continent Comprehended Edited By John Logan Allen, G. Malcom Lewis

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

A Continent Comprehended is the final volume in a trilogy on North American exploration that began with the publication in 1997 of A New World Disclosed and continued with A Continent Defined. Disclosure, definition, and comprehension announce a conceptual approach appropriate to furthering the retrospective understanding of geographical exploration at the time of the Columbian Quincentenary, the event the volumes were originally planned to commemorate. Historiographers are unlikely to find much evidence of these or other essentially cognitive concepts in the exploration histories that celebrated the Quadcentenary one hundred years before. Yet here they are, more or less overt, …

Review Of Cahokia: Domination And Ideology In The Mississippian World Edited By Timothy R. Pauketat And Thomas E. Emerson, Alan J. Osborn

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Cahokia is a spectacular eleventh- to twelfth-century village and earth mound complex near the confluence of the Missouri and the Mississippi rivers east of present day St. Louis. This prehistoric community may have supported 10,000 inhabitants and was part of an even larger array of settlements, platform and burial mounds, and cemeteries that stretched across 86,000 acres of fertile flood plains (the American Bottoms). Extensive archaeological work associated with highway construction in the 1970s and 1980s provided rich, diverse evidence for day-to-day domestic activities, as well as regional trade, immense corvee labor projects (e.g., platform mounds, "woodhenges," and palisades), military …

Review Of People And The Land Through Time: Linking Ecology And History By Emily W. B. Russell, Emily Greenwald

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

While some environmental historians have used the insights of the natural sciences in their historical work, Emily Russell, offering a scientist's perspective, challenges ecologists to incorporate historians' methods and insights into their studies. In People and the Land through Time, Russell outlines working principles for the "historical ecologist," a scholar who traces past human impacts on particular ecosystems. She makes it clear that her emphasis is on ecological systems rather than humans, but argues that ecosystems can't be fully understood without accounting for how human actions have affected them.

The book provides an introduction to methods and a variety …

Tallgrass Prairie: Remnants And Relicts, Jane H. Bock, Carl E. Bock

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

The tallgrass prairie once was continuous throughout the eastern Great Plains. Now, scattered remnants remain. The distribution of some of the most interesting and socially valuable remnants occur along the base of the Rocky Mountains as relicts from a past era. When the species composition of these Colorado grasslands is compared with that of the eastern tallgrass prairie by an index of similarity, the relationship is clear, even though the climates of the two regions differ greatly. It is likely that this western tallgrass prairie is left over from past geologic times rather than the product of long distance seed …

Great Plains Research, Fall 1998 - News And Notes

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Contents:

Calls for papers
Conferences

Review Of Common Fields: An Environmental History Of St. Louis Edited By Andrew Hurley, Timothy Mahoney

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

The thirteen articles in this fine volume make a strong contribution to the intellectual effort to put the environment back into urban history by elevating it from a mere "stage" or "setting" to an active independent variable which shaped the course of urban development. The authors' collective goal is to demonstrate that the residents of St. Louis and its region were engaged in a dynamic interaction with the environment from the origins of human settlement in the area, and that the actions and strategies they undertook to generate urban development were shaped as much by the environment as by their …

Review Of The Hidden Sea: Ground Water, Springs, And Wells By Francis H. Chapelle

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

The Hidden Sea is divided into three parts. The first, "Myths and Models," tells "how both mysticism and rationality have been used to understand the puzzling behavior of groundwater." Second is "Bays in the Sea," which reports on "the strikingly different characteristics of ground water systems found in different parts of the country, and how their differences affect the people who use them." The last part, "Evil and the Wells," discusses "how ground water systems can become contaminated by various waste disposal practices, and how perceptions of this contamination are so often different from reality." Francis Chapelle, a research biologist …

Review Of Principles Of Geoarchaeology: A North American Perspective By Michael R. Waters, Rolfe D. Mandel

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

First published in 1992, this book-now in paper-presents the fundamentals of geoarchaeology, the field of study that applies the concepts and methods of the geosciences to archaeological research. Although a number of good books have been written about this subdiscipline of archaeology, Waters restricts his review to late Quaternary landscapes in North America. Furthermore, he limits his discussion to the field aspects of geoarchaeology. Stratigraphy, site formation processes, and landscape reconstruction are the centerpieces of this study. Readers looking for information about laboratory methods, dating techniques, or the application of geophysics and geochemistry to archaeology must go to other sources. …

The Economic Impact Of Hockey In Saskatchewan: A Rural-Urban Comparison, David Fennell

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Current research suggests that there may be positive local economic benefits associated with holding local sporting and other tourism-related events in communities. This study examined the economic impact of two municipal hockey tournaments, one urban and one rural, in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Based on the responses of three geographically-oriented travel groups (Total N=169), an estimated CDN $137,442 was generated by both tournaments; 87% was associated with the larger urban tournament in Saskatoon. However, the smaller rural tournament generated $10,635 revenue in Kamsack and vicinity. Evidence of the direct economic input from tourism should help communities and organizations who …

Review Of Baby Bird Portraits By George Miksch Sutton By Paula. Johnsgard, James D. Rising

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

I love this book. First and foremost, it is a collection of important paintings beautiful in their own right. George Miksch ("Doc") Sutton was one of the most influential ornithologists and bird artists of the twentieth century and a leader in painting living birds in the field. Among his more important contributions were several paintings of nestling and young birds, many of them now in a collection at Chicago's Field Museum. Baby Bird Portraits reproduces thirty-four of these studies, many for the first time, in outstanding color, making them available in a single volume.

This is a significant book both …

Great Plains Research, Fall 1998 - Contents

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Table of contents

Review Of The Whiskey Trade Of The Northwestern Plains: A Multidisciplinary Approach By Margaret A. Kennedy, Peter C. Mancall

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Margaret A. Kennedy marshals three distinct types of evidence here to describe the so-called "Whiskey Trade" of the nineteenth-century Northwestern Plains, a geographic region that crosses the border between the United States and Canada. The first part of the book presents evidence from the written historical record, a data set that privileges the views of the white traders who organized the commerce in buffalo robes in this part of the Plains. The second part consists of a too-brief ethnographic chapter based on Kennedy's interviews with Native People. In the third and longest part she describes the archaeological record, mostly the …

Regional Economic Development: Evaluation Of A Local Initiative In North Dakota, F. Larry Leistritz, Dean Bangsund

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Widespread economic problems in rural areas have stimulated interest in rural economic development, and particularly in locally-based development initiatives. This paper describes and evaluates a state/local economic development initiative that has been operational in North Dakota for almost ten years-creation of regional economic development funds financed by local option sales taxes. Data collected through interviews with managers of seven such funds, which have been operating from one to eight years, provide the basis for describing the economic development activities supported by the funds and the results of those efforts. The findings show that the businesses assisted have resulted in creation …

Review Of The Science Of Conservation Planning: Habitat Conservation Under The Endangered Species Act By Reed F. Noss, Michael A. O'Connell, And Dennis D. Murphy, Craig A. Davis

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

The Science of Conservation Planning is a well-written book that proclaims the need for rigorous science in habitat conservation planning. I found it particularly relevant in light of the push for developing more habitat conservation plans (HCPs) to mitigate habitat losses for endangered species. The authors' considerable experience in developing and evaluating HCPs is evident in their thorough evaluation of the entire habitat conservation planning process and in their science-based recommendations for improving habitat conservation planning.

Review Of Parallel Paths: Fiduciary Doctrine And The Crown-Native Relationship In Canada By Leonard Ian Rotman, Russel Lawrence Barsh

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

In 1984, Canada's Supreme Court stunned Ottawa by ordering the Department of Indian Affairs to compensate an Indian Reserve for the Department's mismanaging of a golf course development. Federal management of Indian lands under the Indian Act had previously been regarded as discretionary and unreviewable, but the Supreme Court threatened to hold Canada to a high standard of "fiduciary responsibility" in the exercise of its sweeping powers over Indian nations.

The implications of this landmark decision remain uncertain, however. Canadian courts are hesitant and inconsistent when they invoke the fiduciary principle, and Ottawa strenuously denies any application of fiduciary standards …

Review Of The Tallgrass Restoration Handbook: For Prairies, Savannas, And Woodlands Edited By Stephen Packard And Cornelia F. Mutel, Douglas H. Johnson

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Prairies have been termed the nation's most endangered ecosystem. Tallgrass prairies especially have been converted to cultivation; most states have lost ninety-eight percent or more of the tallgrass prairie that existed before European settlement. The rich soils that tallgrass vegetation created over millennia led to the prairies' replacement by the Corn Belt in a matter of mere decades.

While most persons, rather than mourning the passing of tallgrass prairie, are contented with the vistas of grains and soybeans that displaced it, some conservationists are attempting to stem the tide of habitat loss, and others are going so far as trying …

Review Of Writing The Range: Race, Class, And Culture In The Women's West Edited With Introduction By Elizabeth Jameson And Susan Armitage, Angel Kwolek-Folland

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

This collection of twenty-nine essays, some previously published, aspires to assemble some of the most important new work on women in the multicultural West and to challenge a monocultural national narrative. The focus on the West assumes that region is a meaningful analytical category. In addition, the editors argue that the dynamic of waves of migration to contested territory could stand as a process common to the nation's entire history. Because of the nature of an essay collection, the latter aspiration is difficult to sustain as a coherent argument. Nonetheless, the collection succeeds as a fairly comprehensive introduction to the …

Review Of Wallace Stegner: His Life And Work By Jackson J. Benson, Robert Thacker

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

When he died of injuries sustained in an automobile accident in April of 1993, Wallace Stegner left a list of eight writing projects he had yet to do pinned above his desk, awaiting his return. Noting this fact toward the end of this thorough biography, Benson writes that "Stegner's career as a novelist followed a pattern of lifelong growth, reaching its zenith near the end." He was, his biographer says, "simply, by far, the brightest man I've ever known," and ultimately Benson concludes that "Perhaps Wallace Stegner's greatest creation was himself-a good man who always did the best he could. …

Review Of Cather Studies Volume 3. Edited By Susan J. Rosowski, Patrick W. Shaw

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

With some notable exceptions, the fourteen essays in this collection come from critics well-known to the most casual reader of Cather scholarship-John J. Murphy, Merrill Maguire Skaggs, and Marilyn Arnold, for example. Because their views and interdependence are familiar, the reader should be at ease traveling through some of the best traditional criticism of Willa Cather's fiction.

The collection is at its best, however, in essays that deviate from the familiar and traditional. Ann Romines's "Her Mortal Enemy's Daughter: Cather and the Writing of Age" is its finest piece. Immediately following John J. Murphy's "Gilt Diana and Ivory Christ: Love …

Review Of Constitutionalism And Native Americans, 1903 - 1968. Volume 2 Of Native Americans And The Law: Contemporary And Historical Perspectives On American Indian Rights, Freedoms, And SovereigntyEdited With Introductions By John R. Wunder, Jill Norgren

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The previously published essays selected by editor John R. Wunder for volume two of this six book series take up the legal, political, and economic issues of Native American sovereignty at the critical moment of the 1903 Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock United States Supreme Court decision (treated in volume one). In his brief introduction to volume two, Wunder describes the period from 1903 to 1968 as one in which the tension between federally enforced tribal constitutionalism and "residual sovereign rights" was played out. Excerpts from Charles Wilkinson's American Indians, Time, and the Law (1987) provide an opening framework to explain …

Review Of Plains Indian History And Culture: Essays On Continuity And Change By John C. Ewers, Herbert T. Hoover

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Twelve chapters form a collection of essays mainly about northern Great Plains tribal cultures and experiences with non-Indians in the past. The omission of a summary essay at the end indicates an absence of unifying themes. Topics related to tribal relations include the clothing of women, women's roles in intertribal wars, the creation of maps by tribal soldiers, and the goals of inter-tribal warfare. Subjects pertaining to Indian-white relations include reciprocal ethnic images, symbols of chief-making by outsiders, reasons for tribal participation in the fur trade, and consequences of disease epidemics.

All chapters originally appeared elsewhere, but their publication under …