Pastoral Landscape Research Articles

Poet of North Georgia

HISTORICAL AUTHOR—BYRON HERBERT REECE Poet of North Georgia_________________ Hugh Ruppersburg Virtually unknown outside his native state of Georgia, Byron Herbert Reece had a career as a poet and novelist that barely spanned two decades. As his biographer Raymond Cook observes, "Reece wrote nearly all of his poetry in the basic, traditional forms of the past, but to the couplet, the four-line stanza, the ballad, and the sonnet he brought a freshness that is nearly always unmistakably his own" (140). Compared with the modernist verse of Eliot, Pound, Stevens, and other leading English language poets of the twentieth century, his poems—reminiscent of the balladry of Robert Burns and the somber lyrics of Thomas Hardy—seemed old fashioned and sentimental, deceptively simplistic. He disliked the modernists and scorned the critics who praised their work and ignored his. His two novels—dark, lyrical narratives about life and death in the North Georgia Mountains—received even less attention than his poetry. Reece was born in 1917 at the foot of Blood Mountain, eleven miles south of Blairsville, Georgia. He did not see an automobile until he was eight years old. His father Juan was a farmer. His mother Emma taught him to read when he was very young, and he gave early evidence of an unusual intelligence. After graduating second in his high school class in Blairsville, Georgia, he enrolled at Young Harris College. His father's illness forced him to return home to work the family farm, and for the next few years he took classes intermittently, taught elementary school, farmed, and wrote. He never graduated— apparently because he refused to take required courses in French and mathematics. In 1937 he saw the first publication of one of his poems. Late in 1939 his work came to the attention of Atlanta Constitution editor Ralph McGiIl, who became a friend and promoted Reece for the rest of his life. In 1943 Kentucky novelist Jesse Stuart read Reece's work and was so impressed that he convinced his publisher, E. P. Dutton, to publish Reece's first collection of poems, Ballad ofthe Bones (1945). It was followed by Better a Dinner ofHerbs (novel, 1950), Bow Down in Jericho (verse, 1950), A Song ofJoy (verse, 1952), The Hawk and the Sun (novel, 1955), and The Season ofFlesh (verse, 1955), all published by Dutton. 64 Published in nationally prominent journals, and occasionally featured in leading newspapers or magazines (such as Newsweek), Reece never became widely known. Self-effacing and reticent, weighed down by family responsibilities and physical illness, he had little energy or inclination for promoting his own work. He did earn occasional honors. He was cited for his writing five times by the Georgia Writers Association, won an annual award from American Poet magazine in 1943, received two Guggenheim awards, and was asked to teach as poet-in-residence at UCLA, where he was unhappy and unable to write. He also taught briefly as poet-in-residence at Emory University and for several stints at Young Harris College. In 1954 he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. In 1958, struggling with depression, financial pressures, and disease, he committed suicide. Although Reece's poetry and fiction make clear that he had devoted himself to writing about his native region—his work is often set in the mountains or the rural countryside—it evokes a broadly drawn rural, pastoral landscape laced with sorrow, lost love, death, and grief, and not always geographically distinct or identifiable. His literary and political conservatism is evident in his choice of traditional poetic forms, in his subject matter, and in his attitudes. His poem "Roads" (from Bow Down in Jericho) contrasts the hurly-burly life of the city with the rural mountain existence he preferred. He describes the "highways racing east and west" and "the busy traffic roar" of "Heet tourists bound on far behests / And monstrous mastodons of freight." Though he expresses ironic awe ("I name them great and wonderful") for the roads and their speeding traffic, the roaring trucks, all headed towards the "cities whose extended pull / They have no choice but to convey," he confesses his true allegiance: My heart is native to the sky Where hills that are...

Rügen oder Rom? Die "Landschaften mit Regenbogen" von Caspar David Friedrich und Joseph Anton Koch in ihrem politischen Kontext

The writer compares and contrasts early 19th-century landscape paintings with rainbows by Caspar David Friedrich (Rugenlandschaft mit Regenbogen (1810), and Joseph Anton Koch (Heroische Landschaft mit Regenbogen (1805, 1815). Friedrich's view of Rugen Island corrects the ideal of the pastoral landscape, and the rainbow represents an unfulfilled yearning. Koch's Neoclassical Roman view filters the ideal pastoral landscape through the experiences of his homeland and age. The writer also considers the political contexts of these paintings.

Effects of reduced grazing on population density and breeding success of black grouse in northern England

1 The maintenance or modification of grazing regimes is frequently advocated to deliver conservation targets in pastoral landscapes, but there are few quantitative studies of the effects of grazing on upland birds. This is particularly true with respect to grazing management in agri-environment schemes. 2 Numbers of black grouse Tetrao tetrix and their breeding success were therefore monitored at 20 sites in the north of England from 1996 to 2000. Ten treatment sites included areas where grazing was reduced before and during the study to < 1·1 sheep ha −1 in summer and < 0·5 sheep ha −1 in winter. Each was paired with a reference site that held sheep at two (summer) to three times (winter) the density on the experimental sites. The reduced grazing sites ranged from 0·4 to 3·2 km 2 in size and most were part of existing agreements within agri-environment schemes that had been in place for 1–5 years before 1996. 3 Numbers of black grouse males displaying increased by an average of 4·6% (SE = 2·1) year −1 at the 10 sites with reduced grazing. Displaying male trends differed significantly between treatment and normally grazed reference sites, where numbers declined annually on average by 1·7% (SE = 1·4). 4 Summer black grouse hen densities showed the greatest rate of increase where grazing was restricted on smaller areas of ground (0·4 km 2 ). Declines occurred at sites where the area of restricted grazing exceeded about 1 km 2 . The rates of change in population density, as indicated by numbers of displaying males, peaked in the early years of grazing reduction and then declined after c. 5–7 years. 5 The proportion of females that retained broods during the late chick-rearing period was 54% (SE = 0·06) at sites with reduced grazing, significantly greater than the 32% (SE = 0·06) at normally grazed reference sites. There was no difference in the size of broods between grazing treatments. 6 This study demonstrates that agri-environment schemes, which encourage extensive management of grazing land, can benefit at least some organisms of conservation importance and lead to some recovery of populations. There is a need, however, for further understanding of how such benefits can be maintained at a landscape scale and over the greater time scales involved in vegetation dynamics and bird population processes.

Large‐scale patterns of summer and winter bird distribution in relation to farmland type in England and Wales

Over the last 30 yr, the loss of traditional crop rotations and the polarisation of pastoral and arable farming have led to a marked reduction in mixed agriculture in Britain at both the individual farm and the landscape scale. We assess the potential impact of this change on lowland farmland birds by examining the extent to which distributions (as shown by national atlases of summer and winter birds) of different species are associated with arable, pastoral or mixed‐farming landscape types. Relatively few species appeared as either widespread generalists, equally associated across the three broad farmland types, or specialists associated only with one landscape type. Most were associated with two farmland types but distributions showed seasonal differences. During the breeding season there was an approximate ratio of 2:2:1 of species associated with arable, mixed and pastoral landscapes. However, in winter, most species were at highest abundance in mixed farming landscapes. This coincided with a reduction in the number of species associated with pastoral landscapes relative to the breeding season, whereas the number of species associated with arable landscapes remained relatively stable. These patterns are likely to be related to foraging requirements; granivorous birds tended to be associated with arable habitats, which tend to be more seed‐rich, and invertebrate‐feeding species tended to be associated with mixed or pastoral ones, which may be more invertebrate‐rich. The relative importance of mixed landscapes in winter was attributed to seasonal changes in the distribution of some invertebrate feeders, particularly small insectivores (pipits, chats and wagtails), and some of those species considered to be widespread in summer. The results have two important implications for future research. First, most research on farmland birds has, to date, focused on species associated with arable farming during the breeding season. More research is required on species associated with agricultural grasslands, reflecting its importance for farmland birds in Britain, and on the winter ecology of farmland birds in general. These results also emphasise the importance of mixed habitats for farmland birds, particularly in winter, and suggest that further changes in agricultural practices causing reduction in habitat diversity will be detrimental for the farmland bird community. However, widespread benefits may be derived from small scale measures that increase habitat diversity within farmland, for example field margin management options within agri‐environment schemes and support for traditional farming practices in some Environmentally Sensitive Areas.

Thomas Cole's River in the Catskills as Antipastoral

Art historians and American Studies scholars have interpreted Cole's River in the Catskills (1843)—a landscape view that includes a train—as a pastoral. This article maintains that Cole intended River in the Catskills as an antipastoral—as a deliberate attack on the conventions of pastoral landscape painting and consequently on a pervasive, if often contested, ideology that lauded improvement and material progress. Through an examination of historical and visual evidence and an analysis of the work's landscape painting conventions, the article aims to recover meanings the painting may have held for the artist and for some of his contemporaries.

Thomas Cole's "River in the Catskills" as Antipastoral

Art historians and American Studies scholars have interpreted Cole's River in the Catskills (1843)—a landscape view that includes a train—as a pastoral. This article maintains that Cole intended River in the Catskills as an antipastoral—as a deliberate attack on the conventions of pastoral landscape painting and consequently on a pervasive, if often contested, ideology that lauded improvement and material progress. Through an examination of historical and visual evidence and an analysis of the work's landscape painting conventions, the article aims to recover meanings the painting may have held for the artist and for some of his contemporaries.

"The Pains of Memory": Aberrant Spaces, Historical Anxieties, and National Images of Mourning in Puerto Rican Art and Literature

Francisco Oller's ElVelorio (The Wake)(c. 1893) (Fig. 1), Puerto Rico's most famous folklore painting, portrays a space of grieving memory on a canvas. As a national treasure, The Wake is a source of pride and national identification. I want to argue that this canvas depicts the space of the nation through its work of mourning. Oller's own description of the painting, when it was unveiled in the Salon of 1895, points to its "criticism of a custom that still exists in Puerto Rico among country people and which has been propagated by the priests [...] This is an orgy of brutish appetites under the guise of a gross superstition [...]" ("Crítica sorprendente de una costumbre que aún existe en Puerto Rico entre los campesinos y que ha sido propagada por los sacerdotes [...] Esto es una orgía de apetitos brutales bajo el velo de una superstición grosera [...]"; Marimar Benítez 193).2 The painting depicts a folkloric scene in which the wake of a child, a [End Page 449] baquiné—"the wake of a little angel" ("velorio de un angelito")—is taking place. But in Oller's depiction the event is one in which disorder rules. The child is center stage, portrayed with a monstrously pale, disfigured face—a demonic face attached to a distinctly non-angelic body. It actually looks more possessed than dead. The mourners surrounding the child display a startling lack of solemnity: they play guitar, drink, talk, laugh, run, and generally mess around. An even more outrageous scene is pictured in the left foreground, where there is a couple in full-fledged romance grabbing each other. Plantains and corn cobs hang from the ceiling. And to add a heightened level of surreality, a roasted pig is brought into the scene through the back door. The chaotic scene, or jorgorio, represented in the painting sharply contrasts with the idyllic pastoral landscape that can be viewed, through the main doors, in the left side of the painting. As if concealing a painting within a painting (and similar to the rococo style of José Campeche), the idyllic scene depicts two men in perfect harmony leaving behind the collective palaver. As the quintessential representation of Puerto Rican criollismo, The Wake is embedded in multiple layers of representation that seem disconnected from the dead child at their center. Indeed, what is most striking in the [End Page 450] painting is the general apathy with respect to the dead child, as if everything were taking place under the spell of a collective forgetting. The sole exception to this general apathy is the figure in the painting's center, the Afro-Caribbean character who stares in the direction of the child; this character carries a cane, has a curved back, is barefoot, wears humble clothes, and touches his gray beard with his left hand in intense contemplation. His demeanor accentuates what I would call a space of national recognition. In its departure from European thematics and its embracing a new sense of Puerto Ricanhood—a national space in the process of mourning—The Wake symbolizes a defining moment of national aesthetic consciousness. But this canvas also registers a critique of the orgiastic reality that has been "propagated by the the priests" (as Oller noted), who recall the role of founding fathers. Hence The Wake depicts the death of a young nation; it figures the truncated possibility of a nation in its youth and shows the mourning of a redundant space of thwarted possibilities in a Puerto Rican context. The Wake signals the spaces of art and mourning that are constitutively forgotten in the formation of Caribbean nationhood. In this essay I discuss the role of the discourse of art criticism as a forgotten component, an overlooked discursive spatiality, in contemporary discussions of nation-building in Caribbean societies. In...

A vegetation analysis of the pastoral landscapes of upland Wales, UK

Abstract. The upland moorlands of Wales are situated on the oceanic fringe of western Europe, and have experienced a long history of pastoral management. Recent vegetation data are analysed to assess the relative contribution of abiotic and anthropogenic factors to variation in habitat composition among the major upland ranges of this region. From a numerical analysis of plant community cover data, recorded from 65 sites covering 260 000 ha, a six‐cluster site classification emerged with striking biogeographical coherence. Direct gradient analysis and variance partitioning revealed strong correlation between vegetation composition and spatially‐structured climatic gradients, in particular temperature, rainfall and oceanicity; differences in bedrock geology appear to have a lesser role. The analysis also indicates a close correlation between habitat variation and anthropogenic parameters, especially grazing intensity, burning frequency, and sulphur and nitrogen deposition levels. At this regional scale, anthropogenic impacts appear to have accentuated, rather than obscured, vegetation patterns which are primarily determined by climate and other abiotic variables. The findings have considerable relevance for conservation planning and also for predictive studies on the consequences of climatic change for the biota of the uplands of southern Britain.

A vegetation analysis of the pastoral landscapes of upland Wales, UK

Abstract The upland moorlands of Wales are situated on the oceanic fringe of western Europe, and have experienced a long history of pastoral management. Recent vegetation data are analysed to assess the relative contribution of abiotic and anthropogenic factors to variation in habitat composition among the major upland ranges of this region. From a numerical analysis of plant community cover data, recorded from 65 sites covering 260000 ha, a six-cluster site classification emerged with striking biogeographical coherence. Direct gradient analysis and variance partitioning revealed strong correlation between vegetation composition and spatially-structured climatic gradients, in particular temperature, rainfall and oceanicity; differences in bedrock geology appear to have a lesser role. The analysis also indicates a close correlation between habitat variation and anthropogenic parameters, especially grazing intensity, burning frequency, and sulphur and nitrogen deposition levels. At this regional scale, anth...

Thérèse Louise de Sureda

Thérèse Louise de Sureda

Causes of the extinction of native mammals of the Western Division of New South Wales: an ecological interpretation of the nineteenth century historical record

Twenty-four mammal species – predominantly the medium-sized, ground-dwelling mammals with a dependence on grass/herbs and seeds – disappeared forever from the landscape of the Western Division of New South Wales in a period of 60 years from first settlement in 1841. The present study examines the causes of this extinction episode by constructing a picture of the changing landscape from the historical record and interpreting the findings ecologically. The conclusions point to an extinction process that can be largely attributed to the impact of sheep, an impact that was exacerbated in the scarce and fragile refuges of the flat landscape in times of intense and frequent drought. This conclusion differs from those of many others, particularly Kerin in the Western Lands Review, who pointed to "the impact of feral animals, rather than overgrazing" as the cause of mammal extinctions, and Morton, who considered that the rabbit was "principally (although not entirely)" responsible for mammal extinctions in the rangelands. The rabbit plague in the Western Division from the early 1880s and the influx of foxes in the last years of the 19th century expedited the local demise of some species and even delivered the final blow to surviving remnant populations of a few species of native mammals but they were not the primary agent of extinction. Historical accounts give prominence to the rapidly growing wool industry in the 19th century. From its dominant position as an export commodity, wool became the chief means of the successful spread of colonial settlement. By 1853 there were about 300,000 sheep based at the southern end of the Darling on the watered frontages, which were all taken up by 1858. The west of the Darling was largely occupied by sheep farmers between 1859 and 1876. The history of settlement around Menindee from 1841 can be read as a devastating critique of the failure to realise that the west could not sustain a pattern of land use imposed on it from another world. The deterioration of the pastoral landscape was such that by the late 1880s the "walls of the pastoral fortresses... were beginning to crumble of their own accord, as the foundations on which they were built — the physical environment — altered under stresses...". The sequence of occupation and land use in the Western Division and the timing of the loss of native mammal species allows the conclusion to be drawn that it was sheep, and the way the land was managed for the export wool industry, that drove so many of the mammal species to extinction. The impact of ever-increasing millions of sheep on all frontages, through all the refuges, and across all the landscape by the mid 1880s is the primary cause of the greatest period of mammal extinction in Australia in modern times.

Estimating hedgerow length and pattern characteristics in Great Britain using Countryside Survey data

A chequer-board pattern of fields is characteristic of much of lowland Britain and other parts of western Europe. The field boundaries are often composed of hedgerows which, by tradition, are regularly managed to provide a relatively compact, sustainable, stock-proof barrier. The management regimes of hedgerows are, however, extremely variable resulting in a range of features, from low, compact, dense lines of shrubs through to tall, open rows of small trees. As well as providing an agronomic benefit, this network of several hundred thousand kilometres, has been shown to be a valuable resource to wildlife and is important as an aesthetic contribution to the British landscape. Therefore, the maintenance of the British hedgerow network is important and survey is essential to monitor its continuity. The Countryside Surveys have been used as means of achieving this, as well as providing a rich source of information, for example, about landscape pattern and changes in this over time.Hedgerow data have been collected during sample-based field surveys in 1978, 1984, 1990 and 1993. National estimates of the length of managed hedgerow derived from these data showed a 23% reduction in the resource between 1984 and 1990. Much of this ‘loss’ appeared to be due to management regimes which have led to more overgrown hedgerows and rows of scattered shrubs. The proportion of mixed-species hedgerows increased between the two dates and there was a reduction in stockproof hedgerows but most other characteristics (e.g. height and management) remained constant. Landscape-pattern measures applied to the hedgerow network showed broad similarity across a range of landscape types in Britain although the density of hedges was greater in the pastural landscapes of the south and west. Measurement of ‘connectedness’, a feature of potential value in aiding species movement through the landscape, suggested that the British landscape is less-well connected in 1990 than previously. Hedgerows were found next to linear features, such as roads, as frequently as they were to any other land use.One of the most significant findings from analysis of 1984 and 1990 data was that there has been an increase in larger and more overgrown hedgerows, often to the point where they could no longer be defined as hedgerows. Overgrown hedgerows do have wildlife and other value but, to remain sustainable, hedgerows do require some degree of management. There is potential for using the Countryside Survey data further to provided better advice on the sustainable and sympathetic management of hedgerows. This is necessary to provide a rich and diverse network within a landscape or management unit.Countryside Survey hedgerow results have already been used to inform rural policy in Britain and have helped to underpin the introduction of policies and incentives which protect and enhance this landscape resource. These data are also being used to measure indicators of sustainable development and to provide a baseline against which changes in ancient and/or species-rich hedgerows can be assessed, as required in the UK Biodiversity Action Plan. The surveys have proved useful in gathering information on the hedgerows and other linear features in the British landscape. The approach could well be adapted to the needs of other countries where, for example, fencerows and roadside vegetation also provide an important ecological and landscape resource.

The distribution and decline of a widespread butterflyLycaena phlaeasin a pastoral landscape

Summary1. Ecological specialists are often regarded as most likely to be threatened by anthropogenic habitat changes but few relevant data are available on changes in the status of widespread species.2. Grid square distribution maps have been used widely to measure rates of decline and target conservation resources but it is known that coarse grain mapping is not appropriate to identify declines in widespread species that initially contain numerous local populations per grid cell. Changes in the status of widespread species need to be quantified.3. Present‐day habitat associations, determined from over 2000 transect counts, combined with data on historical and present‐day habitat distributions, reveal that the area of occupancy and population‐level rate of decline of the Small Copper butterflyLycaena phlaeasis likely to have been of the order of 92 and 89% respectively, in 35 km2of North Wales. Similar data on the species' major host plantsRumex acetosaandR. acetosellaindicate possible declines in area occupied of 48 and 91%. If a 1‐km2grid was applied to the landscape, and ifL. phlaeas,R. acetosa, andR. acetosellahad occupied all 1‐km2cells in the study area in 1901 (non‐limestone cells forR. acetosellaonly), their declines would only have been recorded as 15, 9, and 35% respectively.4. Many declining ecological specialists are threatened with extinction because of their initial rarity. At a population level, however, they may or may not be declining faster than less specialised species. The results presented here illustrate that some widespread species may have declined as much as many of Britain's rarities.

A holistic model for landscape ecology in practice: the Swedish survey and management of ancient meadows and pastures

The survey conducted under the Ancient Meadows and Pastures project represents a new approach in nature conservation in Sweden, where natural and cultural heritage values were inventoried and analysed in an integrated holistic approach between 1985 and 1997. The model for the survey, developed jointly by researchers and planners, is composed of four steps: methodological development of data collection; national survey and regional ranking; national analysis; and applications. This paper describes the conceptual model, the methodological development and national analysis. The method development is composed of strategic selection of criteria for natural and cultural values, development of classification systems, development of techniques for aerial photo interpretation, methods for fieldwork and description, evaluation and ranking. The data collection is based on interpretation in stereo pairs of colour infrared (CIR) aerial photographs with selection of potentially valuable meadows and pastures which are inventoried and checked in the field for cultural-historical nature types, cultural elements, vegetation types and selected indicator species of vascular plants. They are also described from a holistic landscape ecological perspective, integrating the cultural and biological components within the entire landscape and, finally, ranked for nature conservation into four classes. The evaluation emphasises botanical values together with long-term continuity in land-use and management, underpinned with cultural components. The national analysis showed that nearly 200,000 ha of ancient meadows and pastures are well managed and of high value. They are distributed among more than 17,000 objects and 22 cultural-historical nature types. Most were pastures (98%). The result is not only increased knowledge of the distribution of ancient meadows and pastures and a high number of well-managed pasture landscapes throughout Sweden, but also a change in attitude among farmers, towards more positive attitudes to nature conservation and biodiversity and understanding of the cultural landscape. This project has had an important influence, because it is used in regional nature conservation work, has formed the principal basis of several thousands of management agreements with farmers, is used in policy work in the national nature protection plan and in the biodiversity action plan. The database also provides a good foundation for research in cultural landscapes, biodiversity and landscape ecology.

Effects of grazing by free‐ranging cattle on vegetation dynamics in a continental north‐west European heathland

Summary 1. Abandonment and eutrophication are major threats to traditional pastoral landscapes and their wildlife in Europe. Social and economical developments have rendered traditional pastoralism impracticable. More knowledge is needed about the effects of grazing with free‐ranging herbivores, which is increasingly used as a substitute for the traditional herding system. 2. We studied the effects of free‐ranging cattle on the recovery of Calluna heather, tree encroachment and plant species richness in six habitats in a grass‐rich Dutch heathland during a 10‐year period. The habitats differed in soil fertility, initial heather–grass ratio and developmental stage of Calluna. 3. Despite preferential grass defoliation, cattle grazing neither reduced grass cover in grass heath nor prevented grass invasion in heather. Grass invasion failed only in a nitrogen‐poor turf‐stripped Calluna heath. Grazing induced a substantial Calluna recovery in grass heaths on podzolic soils, but its recovery failed in grass heath on a phosphorus‐rich medieval arable field. As a consequence, the grass–heather mosaics generated by free‐ranging cattle were restricted to habitats of intermediate soil fertility. 4. Grazing did not prevent encroachment by pine and birch. Removal by the site manager prevented conversion of 10–20% of the open heathland to forest. 5. During the first 5 years, grazing induced a significant increase in species richness in all habitats. During the second 5 years, species richness stabilized in grass heath and heather–grass mosaics and it declined in the pioneer Calluna heaths. 6. We found indications of various nutrient‐mediated grazing effects on the competitive balance between grass and woody pioneers. These suggest that nutrient‐mediated feedback might be an important explanatory mechanism for the described vegetation mosaic cycling in heathlands. 7. Free‐ranging grazing did not remove the high atmospheric nutrient inputs of the whole area. Substantial amounts of nutrients were redistributed from the grass lawns to the forest. 8. Free‐ranging grazing combined with tree cutting appeared to be a suitable management regime for the maintenance of species‐rich open heathlands with dynamic grass–heather mosaics. 9. Without tree cutting, free‐ranging grazing would have created dynamic tree–grass–heather mosaics in open heathland. Wood–pasture landscapes are fundamentally different from the open heather‐dominated heathlands produced by the traditional sedentary farming system. Integrated grazing of heathland, nutrient‐rich farmland and forests accelerates this change. Alternative grazing regimes are discussed.

Imagining the rational landscape in late imperial Russia

In 1906 an imperial edict launched a reform aimed at «rationalizing» the system of peasant land holding in Russia. The reform was based upon western models of individualized farms and notions of efficiency that were alien to the Russian peasantry. In pursuing its vision of utopian transformation, the state reinforced élite views of peasant backwardness. Although the reform had limited practical impact, notions of peasant backwardness, symbolized for the intelligentsia in the agrarian landscape of strip fields and common pastures, survived the 1917 revolution.

Agricultural habitat-type and the breeding performance of granivorous farmland birds in Britain

Conservation concern about granivorous birds has led to the implication of changing agricultural practices as causes of widespread population decline. We investigate relationships between breeding performance and the agricultural environment for ten granivorous farmland bird species (Stock Dove Columba oenas, Skylark Alauda arvensis, Tree Sparrow Passer montanus, Chaffinch Fringilla coelebs, Greenfinch Carduelis chloris, Linnet C. cannabina, Bullfinch Pyrrhula pyrrhula, Reed Bunting Emberiza schoeniclus, Yellowhammer E. citrinella and Corn Bunting Miliaria calandra). We analyse long-term, extensive data from the British Trust for Ornithology's Nest Record Scheme on breeding performance per breeding attempt with respect to farmland type (arable, grazing or mixed) and time (pre- and post-1975–76). The influence of habitat is investigated at two different scales: within the nesting territory and at the landscape level. Relationships between farmland type and (temporal changes in) breeding performance tended to be species-specific, but a few patterns were each common to some species. Improvements in breeding performance occurred across all three farmland types for four declining species. Grazing farmland seems to have deteriorated as breeding habitat for Linnet and arable/mixed farmland for Reed Bunting. Mixed farming at the territory scale supported better breeding performance for four species, three of which (Bullfinch, Yellowhammer and Corn Bunting) have declined concurrently with mixed farming. Pastoral landscapes supported better breeding performance for up to seven species, six of which have undergone large declines. Arable landscapes supported better breeding only for the stable or increasing Chaffinch and Greenfinch. Different relationships between farming regime and breeding performance were found at the two scales considered.

Mark Twain, Westward Expansion, Immigrant Unrest: Baseball and American Growing Pains in Darryl Brock's If I Never Get Back

Mark Twain, Westward Expansion, Immigrant UnrestBaseball and American Growing Pains in Darryl Brock's If I Never Get Back Peter Carino (bio) Darryl Brock's If I Never Get Back recounts the time traveling adventure of Sam Fowler, a recently divorced and down-on-his-luck San Francisco newspaperman with a degree of athletic talent who awakens in 1896 to become a member of the Cincinnati Red Stockings, baseball's first professional team. But the novel is far more than a baseball adventure tale. Like Mark Twain's Hank Morgan of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Sam initially brings a naive condescension to the past before becoming enmeshed in the richness and complexity of private, public, and political life in 1896. Upon his return to the present, Sam is a chastened, wiser, and more loving man. Sam's adventures are driven by the chaotic energy of post-Civil War America. In the course of his season with the Red Stockings, Sam befriends Mark Twain, takes the transcontinental railroad west to San Francisco, is ensnared in a political plot hatched by the Fenian Brotherhood to invade Canada and ransom it for Irish freedom, and falls in love with a young Fenian widow, Cait Leonard. He then discovers that his twentieth-century life may be a reincarnation of that of her husband, Colm, who was murdered in the Civil War by his supposed best friend, a Fenian leader and secret rival for Cait's affections. Mixing fantasy and historical fact, this episodic plot generates a panorama of an America in flux, an America looking for an identity but moving too fast to fix on one. Baseball is a part of this identity, as the Red Stockings become some of the nation's first popular culture celebrities. Yet, as a professional enterprise, the team also reflects the growing pains of a nation moving from its Anglo-centric and agrarian roots to expansionism, economic competition, and multicultural strife. Brock's rendering of nineteenth-century baseball both reflects and is informed by the instability of the times, and against this backdrop, his protagonist's development demonstrates the malleability of individual and cultural identity in the United States. [End Page 83] Blacking out on a twentieth-century Amtrak platform on his way back west from his father's funeral in Cleveland, Sam finds himself on a train with the famous "base ballists," as they call themselves, and becomes fast friends with the team's left fielder, Andy Leonard, the Huck Finn-like brother of Cait. Acclimating himself to his trip through time, Sam, as would be expected, feels a pronounced sense of dislocation, wondering, "Was my old body back on that station dock? . . . There must be a rationale to all this, a purpose. If I looked for clues surely I'd figure it out. But the whole thing was scary, like plunging into a void. Even with Andy's help, how was I going to cope?"1 Sam's sense of temporal dislocation, while an expected part of the time travel plot, parallels Brock's portrayal of the post-Civil War nation in change. The various locales the Red Stockings visit, as well as their home city of Cincinnati, constitute an unstable melange of rural past and urban aspiration. In Rochester, on the way to a match with the Troy Haymakers, Sam admires the still green channel of the Genesee River but is assaulted by the dust in the air and the roar of heavy machinery coming from the flour mills. He notes the bustling docks and barges that signal the river's impending transformation from pastoral landscape to commercial waterway and, passing the new brick streets of the business district, he recoils from "garbage [that] lay in stinking heaps before buildings, hogs and chickens picking through it" (p. 33). Similarly, on the sidewalks of New York with Mark Twain, after meeting the author on a train, Sam contrasts the gray stone facade, steam-powered elevator, gas chandelier, and plush carpeting of the Astor House with streets reeking of horse manure and markets "hung [with] meat and poultry crawling with flies" (p. 115). One of his strongest senses of culture shock comes...

Race and Reappropriation: Spike Lee Meets Aaron Copland

At the beginning of He Got Game (1998), written and directed by Spike Lee, the credit sequence contains an unusual juxtaposition. In two consecutive title cards the American composer Aaron Copland (19001990) is credited with Music and the rap group Public Enemy is listed for Songs. These credits link a composer widely associated, perhaps inaccurately, with the American heartland to an urban, highly political rap group. A correspondingly diverse set of images appears behind the credits sequence. Usually in balletic slow motion, young Americans play basketball in a variety of locations, including pastoral landscapes in the Midwest and concrete playgrounds in the inner city. Behind the title card with Copland's name a young black man dribbles a ball along the Brooklyn Bridge, perhaps an acknowledgment that both Copland and Spike Lee grew up in Brooklyn and that they may have more in common than audiences expect. Throughout the credits sequence the audience hears the steel-driving clangor of Copland's John Henry. Although this composition is among Copland's more dissonant works, it has an appropriately portentous quality, not unlike the beginnings of many big-budget American films. Copland, in fact, specialized in the auspicious, often opening his compositions with grand gestures, even fanfares. He was also familiar with the conventions of film music. He wrote soundtrack music for

Fields of Grass. Portraits of the Pastoral Landscape and Nomads of the Tibetan Plateau and Himalayas

Fields of Grass. Portraits of the Pastoral Landscape and Nomads of the Tibetan Plateau and Himalayas