Cindy
I agree with you and add that it is less than 0.1% so less than 28,000 
acres.
Daryl Smith

Cindy Hildebrand wrote:

> Thanks for posting the editorial.   It was interesting and 
> thought-provoking.   
>  
> One small point -- I wish that we could encourage the REGISTER and 
> other media to use another term for what the wind now sweeps across in 
> Iowa besides "prairies."  (Plains?  Rolling fields?  Landscape?) 
>  
> Those of us in the conservation community know that Iowa only has 
> about 30,000 acres of surviving prairie left on our 36,000,000 
> acres, which is about three tenths of one percent of the original 
> amount.  And even if one added in public and private 
> prairie reconstructions and (very generously) CRP native 
> grass plantings, we're still not talking about much land for the 
> winds to sweep across.  
>  
> It wouldn't be as picturesque to talk about the "abundant winds 
> sweeping across Iowa's rowcrops and pastures."  But it wouldn't be 
> misleading and it wouldn't add to any conscious or subconscious public 
> misperception that there are plenty of prairies left.
>  
> ch
>  
>
> Cindy Hildebrand
> [log in to unmask]
> Ames, IA  50010
>
> "The heaviest timber land can be purchased for from $5.00 to $12.00 
> per acre. There are black and white walnut, basswood, different kinds 
> of oaks, elms, etc....Of the fertility of the soil -- it can't be 
> excelled. The prairie is rolling, a most magnificent sight." (Arden B. 
> Holcomb describing Boone County, Iowa, in 1855.)
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