Environment Reference Libraries

Fodder is a term used in reference to the feed cut, sometimes prepared, and brought to domesticated farm animals such as cows, goats and pigs. Some fodder is prepared using oils and mixed rations that are mixed in with several different types of sprouted grain and legumes such as alfalfa, clover, corn, and several different types of grass. In the countries that allow it, fodder can also...

Seed drilling is a method used by farmers in order to have a more unified, crop-yielding season. The first known use of seed drilling was in 1500 BC by the Sumerian. At this time, they were using a single tube. Later, in the 2nd Century BC, the Chinese developed a multi-tube iron drill. This facilitated in a larger crop planting allowing them to feed their large population. The first...

Three Sisters crop is a technique of gardening used primarily by Native Americans, but gardeners of any kind may also use this technique. These crops use three types of plants; in the Tewa tribe, they use four. The traditional seeds used are corn, beans, and squash. There are many benefits from this method, the first being the use of the corn stalks for the beans to grow on. The beans...

Seed saving is the preserving of seeds from mature vegetables, herbs, and flowers used in subsequent years along with bulbs and tubers. Home gardeners have saved seeds for generations and the practice is now becoming common with organic farmers as well as permaculturists. Growers will clone plants so as not to produce seeds keeping the plant “true to type” to the parent plant. True to...

This bird of prey is known more as a pigeon hawk. The Merlin is from the Northern Hemisphere with some migrating to subtropical and northern tropical areas during the winter. There has also been a discovery that there are two different, very distinct, species: the North American and the Eurasian. The North American Merlin was first described by a Swede taxonomist, Carl Linnaeus. The Merlin...

The cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) is an extinct species that was found in Europe during the Pleistocene. Its range was large and included areas from Great Britain to Spain, Italy, Poland, the Balkans, areas of Germany, Russia, the Caucuses, Romania, and northern areas of Iran. Large numbers of skeletons have been found in Switzerland, southern Germany, Austria, northern Spain, Hungary, Croatia,...

The brown bear (Ursus arctos) can be found in North America and northern areas of Eurasia. There are sixteen recognized subspecies of the brown bear. This is the most widely distributed species of bear in the world, although its range is shrinking. Its range includes the Alaska and a few other areas of the United States, areas of Russia, and Romania and other areas of the Carpathian region, as...

The Asiatic linsang (Prionodon) is a genus that contains two species of linsangs, and it is the only genus in the Prionodontidae family. The two species, the banded linsang and the spotted linsang, were previously classified in the Viverrinae subfamily, but studies have shown that they differed enough to warrant their own distinct classification. Despite their extreme resemblance to members of...

The Dwarf wedge mussel, Alasmidonta Heterodon, is an endangered species of freshwater mussel, an aquatic bivalve mollusk belonging to the family Unionidae, the river mussels. This species is rare, found solely in North America’s Atlantic coast streams and rivers of a variety of sizes and moderate current. Its current range extends from Maryland to North Carolina. It is federally listed...

The Florida black bear (Ursus americanus floridanus) is a subspecies of the American black bear. It once held a range that included Florida and southern areas of Georgia and Alabama. Today it occurs in these areas and in southern Mississippi, but its range is now fragmented. This species prefers a habitat within forested areas like sand-pine scrub, wetlands, oak scrub, and upland hardwood...