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Harvey Dunn prints might save prairie
Money from sales will preserve land
By Brenda Wade Schmidt
bschmidt@argusleader.com
Published: August 12, 2007
When Bill Wilkinson looks across his pastures, the Lake Preston farmer sees the native prairie that famed artist Harvey Dunn painted.
He hopes it stays that way.
Wilkinson and more than 75 other landowners are interested in the Harvey Dunn Grassland Preservation Project that would pay them in exchange for a promise they will never break up the ground for crops. To fund the program, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is selling Harvey Dunn prints of "The Prairie Trail" through the South Dakota Art Museum in Brookings.
"It's really picking up and going," says Tom Tornow, project leader of the Madison Wetland Management District with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "We're going to sell as many as people want to buy."
A framed print of Dunn's "The Prairie Trail" sells for $400, while it costs $200 unframed. One framed print will preserve an acre of grassland, he says. Money raised in the project can be used to get matching federal money.
Tornow is trying to pay farmers for easements on 24,000 acres in Brookings and Kingsbury counties. That will take more than $14 million, he says.
Under the program, farmers retain ownership of the land, can graze animals on it and can cut it for hay after July 15 each year. Farmers would get, on average, about $500 an acre. . . . (read more)
Go State!
Harvey Dunn prints might save prairie
Money from sales will preserve land
By Brenda Wade Schmidt
bschmidt@argusleader.com
Published: August 12, 2007
When Bill Wilkinson looks across his pastures, the Lake Preston farmer sees the native prairie that famed artist Harvey Dunn painted.
He hopes it stays that way.
Wilkinson and more than 75 other landowners are interested in the Harvey Dunn Grassland Preservation Project that would pay them in exchange for a promise they will never break up the ground for crops. To fund the program, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is selling Harvey Dunn prints of "The Prairie Trail" through the South Dakota Art Museum in Brookings.
"It's really picking up and going," says Tom Tornow, project leader of the Madison Wetland Management District with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "We're going to sell as many as people want to buy."
A framed print of Dunn's "The Prairie Trail" sells for $400, while it costs $200 unframed. One framed print will preserve an acre of grassland, he says. Money raised in the project can be used to get matching federal money.
Tornow is trying to pay farmers for easements on 24,000 acres in Brookings and Kingsbury counties. That will take more than $14 million, he says.
Under the program, farmers retain ownership of the land, can graze animals on it and can cut it for hay after July 15 each year. Farmers would get, on average, about $500 an acre. . . . (read more)
Go State!