Little walk near the prairie

On the grounds of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum is Curtis Prairie, 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. It may not be obvious from the photo below, but this is inside the city of Madison, surrounded by residential neighborhoods.

This morning Tom and I visited the arboretum and looked out over Curtis Prairie. Tom wondered why it was any different from any field that was just allowed to go unfarmed for a long time. Being a librarian, I could not resist the temptation to find out:

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. 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. He continued 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 use this site to determine whether soils can return to pre-settlement health after the return of a prairie. So far the answer is, yes. In the 1930′s, however, when a newspaper reporter asked Dr. Theodore Sperry how long it would take to complete the restoration, he replied “Roughly a thousand years.” The folks at Curtis Prairie think this is still true.

After spending some time wandering around the arboretum, looking at all sorts of interesting trees -- many native to Wisconsin, many others that are being tried out to see if they can withstand the Wisconsin winters --, we took off to spend some time at Olbrich Gardens. The arboretum is like a large park, but Olbrich is definitely gardens. It was a good day to be outside and to enjoy two rather different places.

Tonight we will go to a picnic/potluck dinner at the little railroad, their Fourth of July celebration for staff and volunteers. We have had a lot of rain this summer, and we need the moisture. But the mosquitoes are thriving, too. I hope they don't carry us all off into the woods to be their Fourth of July picnic.