2009-11-19

Owning land in the Hill Country – a rewarding challenge

By Julie Whitmore

Texas A & M University has published 44 volumes in the Louise Lindsey Merrick Natural Environment Series. Most are in the nature of field guides for the Texas farmer or rancher, and many of them are available from the Bandera Public Library.

The most recent, “Hill Country Landowner’s Guide,” by Master Naturalist Jim Stanley is a must read for anyone who owns, and wishes to conserve, land in this part of the world. The book is aimed at those landowners of ranchland or native pastures, whether or not they own grazing animals, although it addresses the problem of overgrazing.

Stanley developed the Land Management Assistance Program for the Master Naturalists, which has so far assisted more than 160 property owners in Bandera and surrounding counties in solving problems and achieving their ownership goals.

Not surprisingly, the guide’s emphasis is on “land ethics” and “land stewardship,” which in the words of Larry White, of Texas AgriLife Extension at A&M University, is “assuming the responsibilities for the care and use of the land resource.”

Or, as Lyndon Johnson said in 1947, “Saving the water and the soil must start where the first raindrop falls.”

If it could be summed up in one word, Stanley’s philosophy would be “sustainability.”

In the Hill Country today, sustainability is challenged mostly by the increase in human and grazing animal populations. In the early 19th century Hill Country, according to Stanley, black bear, wolf, mountain lion, bobcat, ocelot, coyote, alligator, bison, pronghorn antelope, deer and javelina were common.

Today, only deer and coyotes are in any way common in the Hill Country, although black bear are returning to Big Bend and ocelots to the Lower Rio Grande Valley.

Reducing nature’s progeny has caused numerous problems, including overgrowth of cedar, which has perhaps exacerbated our drought-flood cycle and also reduced biodiversity of other plants and animals.

Despite this rather somber beginning, Stanley carefully and in detail outlines how to solve or mitigate the problems in the succeeding 10 chapters. He starts with individualized analysis, and covers overgrazing, erosion, deer, oak wilt, riparian areas and prescribed burning to name a few chapters.

Then Stanley tackles pro-active topics that include protecting a home from wildfire, restoration, managing for songbirds and native plants.

The back of the book is full of suggestions on where to go for help, how to manage your property better, deer resistant planting, glossaries, bibliographies and other help.

The explanation of native diversity is compelling even to those of us who live on small lots, where caliche and native geology alone dictate wildflowers and blooming trees.

Stanley also quotes an earlier naturalist, Aldo Leopold, who wrote in 1949: “When the last corner lot is covered with tenements we can always make a playground by tearing them down, but when the last antelope goes by the board, not all the playground associations in Christendom can do aught to replace the loss.”