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Rating: 
Summary: Everything You Ever Wanted to know about the Pine Barrens
Review: A Field Guide to the Pine Barrens of New Jersey could easily be called "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about the Jersey Pines". Part history lesson, part field guide, it covers its past and present in quite some detail. Its an amateur naturalist's dream, and an outstanding resource for native New Jersyites who want to know a bit more about this uniquie wilderness area.The book can be divided into two parts. The first part covers the Pine Barren's . It starts with its ecological history (soil, climate,etc.) followed by utilitarian and development uses(from mining of iron ore to cranberry farming), then its historic sites and folklore (from Smithville to Batsto to the infamous Jersey Devil) and finally, it touches upon current and future uses and preservation. The presentation in the first part is short, straightforeward, fact-based essays taking up less than the first 100 pages. The next 300 pages or so serve as the Golden Book/Peterson Field Guide to the plants, mammals, birds, reptiles/amphibians, fishes and arthorpods/insects of the Pine Barrens, respectively. There is a plethora of illustrations accompanying the text, and although lacking the ID markings of the Peterson Field Guides, are excellent nontheless and seem to cover nearly all (if not all) of the species presented here. In addition, there are plenty of footnotes and references for those with a bent towards the scinece part of nature, as well as a decent index with both latin and common names. I also recommend a Natural History of Trees, Peterson's Field Guide to Ecology and the Tracker, by Tom Brown, Jr.
Rating:
Summary: Everything You Ever Wanted to know about the Pine Barrens
Review: A Field Guide to the Pine Barrens of New Jersey could easily be called "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about the Jersey Pines". Part history lesson, part field guide, it covers its past and present in quite some detail. Its an amateur naturalist's dream, and an outstanding resource for native New Jersyites who want to know a bit more about this uniquie wilderness area. The book can be divided into two parts. The first part covers the Pine Barren's . It starts with its ecological history (soil, climate,etc.) followed by utilitarian and development uses(from mining of iron ore to cranberry farming), then its historic sites and folklore (from Smithville to Batsto to the infamous Jersey Devil) and finally, it touches upon current and future uses and preservation. The presentation in the first part is short, straightforeward, fact-based essays taking up less than the first 100 pages. The next 300 pages or so serve as the Golden Book/Peterson Field Guide to the plants, mammals, birds, reptiles/amphibians, fishes and arthorpods/insects of the Pine Barrens, respectively. There is a plethora of illustrations accompanying the text, and although lacking the ID markings of the Peterson Field Guides, are excellent nontheless and seem to cover nearly all (if not all) of the species presented here. In addition, there are plenty of footnotes and references for those with a bent towards the scinece part of nature, as well as a decent index with both latin and common names. I also recommend a Natural History of Trees, Peterson's Field Guide to Ecology and the Tracker, by Tom Brown, Jr.
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