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Personal intro

At 09:14 AM 4/12/97 -0500, you wrote:
>
>However, I would like to try encouraging those of you who haven't yet
>participated to send a brief letter of introduction out to the list.

Here's mine.  

I recently purchased 40 acres for a new home site.  Two-thirds is
now tilled farmland, one-third is never-tilled woodland.  I'd like to
restore the ~25 acres to prairie.  It's a sweeping vista that will be 
visible from the new home site, which is on the crest of a glacial
moraine.  This area might reasonably be restored to the kind of
oak savanna that was common in this part of southeast Wisconsin.

Unfortunately, the farmer used atrazine on the corn that was planted 
on 2/3rd of that 25 acres, so I won't be planting grass there this 
season, but instead some other cover crop.  The other third was soybean
treated with "Harness" and that area is showing some grass now.
The cornfield is bare dirt.  The soil here is a sandy clay loam.

I've been interested in restoration and gardening since a child,
collecting cubic feet of seed from wildflower perennials from
neighbors and roadsides.  The sheer size and scope of this project
is exciting.  I'm hoping to find advice about cover crops, planting
such a large area, sources of affordable and appropriate seed, 
controlled burning, etc.  A nearby friend has about ten acres of
virgin prairie (as confirmed by the state department of natural
resources) so I hope to survey his property to see what is native
to this terrain.

John Foust
Jefferson, WI

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