the sand prairies and oak savannas of the Chicago region

In "A Sand County Almanac" Aldo Leopold recounted the pleasures of his run-down farm in central Wisconsin; thirty years later his simple diary is recognized as a milestone of environmentalist literature. The sandy soil memorialized in the Almanac's title rendered the place less than ideal for agriculture, but this economic shortcoming fostered a history of benign neglect. Leopold's farm had not been plowed fencerow to fencerow, and a fascinating native ecosytem was hanging on in the neglected corners--remnants of an open landscape of oak woodlands we now call savannas, interspersed with marshes and flower dappled openings of sand prairie. Leopold, a biology professor, began to take steps to help the natural ecosystem to heal itself on his land. And so, on that poor little farm in Wisconsin the sometimes-art and sometimes-science known as natural areas restoration was born.
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