front cover of Dear Dirt Doctor
Dear Dirt Doctor
Questions Answered the Natural Way
By Howard Garrett
University of Texas Press, 2003

Howard Garrett has converted gardeners throughout Texas and beyond to gardening the natural way without chemical fertilizers and toxic pesticides. In this revised and updated edition of The Dirt Doctor's Guide to Organic Gardening, he uses a question-and-answer format to present a wealth of new information on organic gardening, landscaping, pest control, and natural living. The book also incorporates valuable feedback and suggestions from gardeners who've successfully used Howard's methods.

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front cover of Dirt
Dirt
A Love Story
Edited by Barbara Richardson
University Press of New England, 2015
Community farms. Mud spas. Mineral paints. Nematodes. The world is waking up to the beauty and mystery of dirt. This anthology celebrates the Earth’s generous crust, bringing together essays by award-winning scientists, authors, artists, and dirt lovers to tell dirt’s exuberant tales. Geographically broad and topically diverse, these essays reveal life as lived by dirt fanatics—admiring the first worm of spring, taking a childhood twirl across a dusty Kansas farm, calculating how soil breathes, or baking mud pies. Essayists build a dirt house, center a marriage around dirt, sink down into marshy heaven, and learn to read dirt’s own language. Scientists usher us deep underground with the worms and mycorrhizae to explore the vast and largely ignored natural processes occurring beneath our feet. Whether taking a trek to Venezuela to touch the oldest dirt in the world or reveling in the blessings of our own native soils, these muscular essays answer the important question: How do you get down with dirt? A literary homage to dirt and its significance in our lives, this book will interest hikers, gardeners, teachers, urbanites, farmers, environmentalists, ecologists, and others intrigued by our planet’s alluring skin. Essayists include Vandana Shiva, Peter Heller, Janisse Ray, Bernd Heinrich, Linda Hogan, Wes Jackson, BK Loren, David Montgomery, Laura Pritchett, and Deborah Koons Garcia.
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Discover the Hidden New Jersey
Roberts, Russell
Rutgers University Press, 1995

Did you know—

—that a New Jerseyan was the first president of the United States?
—that New Jersey was the site of the first organized college football game?
—that New Jersey was the location of one of the most devastating espionage attacks of World War I?
—that the heroics of a New Jersey woman saved thousands of people from dying of yellow fever?

These and other fascinating stores can be found in Discover the Hidden New Jersey, a treasury of New Jersey stories that celebrate the unique heritage and importance of the Garden State. Russell Roberts has scoured New Jersey, from High Point to Cape May, to bring readers a delightful potpourri of facts, essays, lists, photos, stories, and legends about New Jersey. Readers will learn how New Jersey used to be the center of the motion picture universe, the origin of the Jersey Devil and other popular tall tales, where Norman Mailer and Abbot & Costello were born, where Aaron Burr and Leo, the M-G-M lion, lie buried, and much more. Learn about the geology of New Jersey, find out about the state’s ever-changing weather, and hear about some of the best places to go for the day. All this and more is in Discover the Hidden New Jersey, the ultimate New Jersey book.

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front cover of Do Bats Drink Blood?
Do Bats Drink Blood?
Fascinating Answers to Questions about Bats
Schmidt-French, Barbara A
Rutgers University Press, 2009
Bat biologist Barbara A. Schmidt-French and writer Carol A. Butler offer a compendium of insightful facts about bats in this accessible and expertly written question-and-answer volume. Numbering more than one thousand species in our world today, bats in the wild are generally unthreatening. Like most other mammals, bats are curious, affectionate, and even playful with one another.

Highly beneficial animals, bats are critical to global ecological, economic, and public health. Do Bats Drink Blood? illuminates the role bats play in the ecosystem, their complex social behavior, and how they glide through the night sky using their acute hearing: echolocation skills that have helped in the development of navigational aids for the blind. Personal in voice with the perspective of a skilled bat researcher, this book explores wide-ranging topics as well as common questions people have about bats, providing a trove of fascinating facts.

Featuring rare color and black-and-white photographs, including some by renowned biologist, photographer, and author Merlin Tuttle, Do Bats Drink Blood? provides a comprehensive resource for general readers, students, teachers, zoo and museum enthusiasts, farmers and orchardists, or anyone who may encounter or be fascinated by these extraordinary animals.

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Do Butterflies Bite?
Fascinating Answers to Questions about Butterflies and Moths
Davies, Hazel
Rutgers University Press, 2008
How fast do butterflies fly? Does a butterfly have ears? Do they sleep? Does a caterpillar have a skeleton? How does a moth get out of its cocoon? What is the difference between a butterfly and a moth? And just what is a skipper?

Every year, thousands of people visit butterfly conservatories to stand in quiet awe of the simple beauty displayed by these magical creatures. Hazel Davies and Carol A. Butler capture the sense of wonderment and curiosity experienced by adults and children alike in this book about butterflies and their taxonomic cousins, the moths and the skippers. Beautifully illustrated with color and black and white photographs, and drawings by renowned artist William Howe, this book is an essential resource for parents, teachers, students, or anyone who has ever been entranced by these fascinating, fluttering creatures.

Covering everything from their basic biology to their complex behaviors at every stage of life to issues in butterfly conservation, Davies and Butler explore wide-ranging topics and supply a trove of intriguing facts. You'll find tips on how to attract more butterflies to your garden, how to photograph them, and even how to raise them in your own home. Arranged in a question and answer format, the book provides detailed information written in an accessible style that brings to life the science and natural history of these insects. In addition, sidebars throughout the book detail an assortment of butterfly trivia, while extensive appendices direct you to organizations, web sites, and more than 200 indoor and outdoor public exhibits, where you can learn more or connect with other lepidopterophiles (butterfly lovers).
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front cover of Do Fish Sleep?
Do Fish Sleep?
Fascinating Answers to Questions about Fishes
Weis, Judith S
Rutgers University Press, 2011

From the fifty-one-foot whale shark Rhincodon typus to a less-than-one-half-inch fish in the minnow family--the tiny Paedocypris progenetica--fish certainly carry a lot of weight . . . or do they?

A fish's heft in water may vary, but these diverse aquatic animals certainly carry a lot of weight in our ecosystems and environment. From freshwater to ocean habitats, Judith S. Weis offers a fascinating look at these deceptively simple creatures. Fishes may appear to live a dull existence, but appearances change once we understand more about how they survive. These wonders actually possess attributes that would make us superpowers--they can change color, sex, produce light and electricity, regenerate injured fins, prevent themselves from sinking, and some can even walk on land.

Do Fish Sleep? is organized in an easy-to-read and accessible question-and-answer format, filled with more than 55 photographs and over 100 interesting facts from fish biology basics to the importance of preserving and restoring fish diversity and healthy populations. A captivating read for fish enthusiasts of all ages--naturalists, environmentalists, aquarists, scuba divers, and students--this is also the perfect primer for those just about to get their feet wet. Dive in!

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front cover of Do Hummingbirds Hum?
Do Hummingbirds Hum?
Fascinating Answers to Questions about Hummingbirds
West, George C
Rutgers University Press, 2010
Hummingbirds may be the smallest birds in the world, but they have the biggest appetites. Their wings flutter on average fifty to eighty times each second as they visit hundreds of flowers over the course of a day to sip the sweet nectar that sustains them. Their hearts beat nearly twelve hundred times a minute and their rapid breathing allows these amazing birds to sustain their unique manner of flight. They can hover in the air for prolonged periods, fly backwards using forceful wings that swivel at the shoulder, and dive at nearly two hundred miles per hour. Native only to the Americas, some hummingbirds have been known to migrate from Mexico to Alaska in the course of a season. Watching a hummingbird at a backyard feeder, we only see its glittering iridescent plumage and its long, narrow beak; its rapidly moving wings are a blur to our eyes.

These tiny, colorful birds have long fascinated birders, amateur naturalists, and gardeners. But, do they really hum?

In Do Hummingbirds Hum? George C. West, who has studied and banded over 13,500 hummingbirds in Arizona, and Carol A. Butler provide an overview of hummingbird biology for the general reader, and more detailed discussions of their morphology and behavior for those who want to fly beyond the basics. Enriched with beautiful and rare photography, including a section in vivid color, this engaging question and answer guide offers readers a wide range of information about these glorious pollinators as well as tips for attracting, photographing, and observing hummingbirds in the wild or in captivity.
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front cover of Don't Give Up the Ship!
Don't Give Up the Ship!
Myths of the War of 1812
Donald R. Hickey
University of Illinois Press, 2006

No longer willing to accept naval blockades, the impressment of American seamen, and seizures of American ships and cargos, the United States declared war on Great Britain. The aim was to frighten Britain into concessions and, if that failed, to bring the war to a swift conclusion with a quick strike at Canada. But the British refused to cave in to American demands, the Canadian campaign ended in disaster, and the U.S. government had to flee Washington, D.C., when it was invaded and burned by a British army.

By all objective measures, the War of 1812 was a debacle for the young republic, and yet it was celebrated as a great military triumph. The American people believed they had won the war and expelled the invader. Oliver H. Perry became a military hero, Francis Scott Key composed what became the national anthem and commenced a national reverence for the flag, and the U.S.S. Constitution, "Old Ironsides," became a symbol of American invincibility. Every aspect of the war, from its causes to its conclusion, was refashioned to heighten the successes, obscure the mistakes, and blur embarrassing distinctions, long before there were mass media or public relations officers in the Pentagon.

In this entertaining and meticulously researched book by America's leading authority on the War of 1812, Donald R. Hickey dispels the many misconcep-tions that distort our view of America's second war with Great Britain. Embracing military, naval, political, economic, and diplomatic analyses, Hickey looks carefully at how the war was fought between 1812 and 1815, and how it was remembered thereafter. Was the original declaration of war a bluff? What were the real roles of Canadian traitor Joseph Willcocks, Mohawk leader John Norton, pirate Jean Laffite, and American naval hero Lucy Baker? Who killed the Shawnee chief Tecumseh and who shot the British general Isaac Brock? Who actually won the war, and what is its lasting legacy? Hickey peels away fantasies and embellishments to explore why cer-tain myths gained currency and how they contributed to the way that the United States and Canada view themselves and each other.

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front cover of Dreamworlds of Alabama
Dreamworlds of Alabama
Allen Shelton
University of Minnesota Press, 2007

“I speak in what others often hear as a strange accent. My past can’t be located. I live in Buffalo, New York, an exile from the South. But these aren’t Yankee dreams, even though my past seems like a fabrication, a dreamworld in which I’m a paper character and not a historical participant, with scars from barbed wire ripping under the pressure and flying through the air like a swarm of bees, or a horse rearing up and banging its head into mine from within, exploding my forehead.” —from the Preface

Wisteria draped on a soldier’s coffin, sent home to Alabama from a Virginia battlefield. The oldest standing house in the county, painted gray and flanked by a pecan orchard. A black steel fence tool, now perched atop a pile of books like a prehistoric bird of prey. In Dreamworlds of Alabama, Allen Shelton explores physical, historical, and social landscapes of northeastern Alabama. His homeplace near the Appalachian foothills provides the setting for a rich examination of cultural practices, a place where the language of place and things resonates with as much vitality and emotional urgency as the language of humans.

Throughout the book, Shelton demonstrates how deeply culture is inscribed in the land and in the most intimate spaces of the person—places of belonging and loss, insight and memory.

Born and raised in Jacksonville, Alabama, Allen Shelton is associate professor of sociology at Buffalo State College.

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