_ > I a |H 111111 l *Hl^RljL.^nH ■'"■ _j ■ r i n 111 ■ 111111 l Wmb^^B VOL. 35 NO. 3 The 174-acre William and Lena Aaron farm became the first farm In Pennsylvania to receive state funding for ag preservation on Monday. The Pennsylvania Ag Land Preservation Board approved purchase of the dairy farm’s easement rights for $127,118 In county " and state funds. Aaron, right, sold the easements In perpetuity. Aaron Farm First In Pennsylvania To Receive State Funds BY USA RISSER QUARRYVILLE (Lancaster Co.) Bill Aaron is a self possessed man comfortable with silence, as are many farmers. He walks with the long, sure stride of someone who knows where he’s Lancaster’s Century Farms and ‘Mr. New Holland ’ Are Honored BY PAT PURCELL WILLOW STREET (Lancaster Co.) Lancaster County agricul ture and business leaders gathered Tuesday evening to celebrate the county’s proud agricultural herit age and to honor those who have Need For Landfill Pits County Government Against Frederick Farm BY KARL BERGER Special Correspondent FREDERICK, MD A casual visitor to Frederick County, Md., probably wouldn’t notice anything out of the ordinary about the Schrodel farm should he come to it one sunny fall afternoon from the north along the meandering course of Bartons ville Road. After driving past a jumble of modest houses and unctopped fields, he would emerge in a mile or so at the top of a ridge with a view of neatly alternating strips of com and alfalfa sloping gently across a small valley ringed by trees. To the right, sprawled against the woods at the top of the ridge, a tangle of metal bams and bins, concrete silos and brick and wood houses testify to the busy nature of a working dairy farm, with its cattle and machinery spilling out into the open and little pockets of manure accumulating, like petroleum deposits, around the edge of the pasture. Three Sections been and where he’s going to. He and his wife, Lena, have taken a step into the future and have prreerved their farm for future generations of farmers. Thu week the state Agricultural Preser vation Bqard approved state fund helped make fanning the number one industry in the county. The 13th Annual Agriculture- Industry Banquet held at the Wil low Valley Resort and Conference Center was sponsored by the Lan caster County Chamber of Com merce and Industry. Lancaster Fanning, Saturday, November 25,1969 Farmland Preservation ing toward the purchase of ease ment rights for the Drumorc Township property.* The Aaron farm is worth about ss,Bsoper acre for building devel opment and about $5,100 for farm use, according to an appraisal con Chamber members not only her alded past achievers, but were also encouraged to become tomorrow’s leaders in the agricultural industry by Keith Bjerke, Administrator of the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service (ASCS), (Turn te Ptigi AM) ducted by the county. The Aarons will be paid the difference between these values in exchange for the legal assurance that the land never will be developed. “We wanted the easement rights purchased in perpetuity,” stated 62-year-old Aaron. “We felt that if we were going to do it, wemightas well do it all the way. I can’t see much sense for the 25 years. Meetings led to preservation The Aarons began thinking about farmland preservation about a year ago. “I had been- to some town meetings last year where they talked about it,” Aaron recalled. “Then the farmer across the road (sold his easement rights), and it got me to thinking more seriously o Straight ahead, to the south, the pleasing pattern of the contoured cropland gives way to more forested hills against the backdrop of Sugarloaf Mountain, 10 miles dis tant This view, unspoiled by the presence of even a single house, recalls what much of the county must have looked like in the days when agriculture was the main way of life. You develop a different perspective on the future of Frederick County if you ap proach the Schrodel farm from the west along Reich’s Ford Road, driving out the three miles from the city of Frederick. Here, too, the road rises and falls past a similar mix of houses and unused fields demarcated at one point by a thick row of white pine trees. The evergreens obviously were intended as a screen, meant to block the view of an open patch of ground to the south from which a cloud of dust is rising. But the pines seem, in this otherwise deciduous landscape, more like neon signs, doing even (Turn to Pago A 34) SOt Per Copy $12.50 Per Year about preserving our farm. If you look 100 years ahead, someone’s going to be angry at us people for not saving the farm land, the way we’re using it up. We wanted to our farm for the future.” Bill and Lena purchased the 174-acre farm in 1961 for about $4OO an acre. They slowly expanded the farm into its present form of a 165-hcad herd of regis tered Jerseys and a pullet operation with 65;000birds. Their sons. Tom and Larry, work in partnership with Aaron. Tom is responsible for book work, milking, breeding cows, and Held management; Lar ry does the feeding and mechanical work; Bill cares for the chickens. (Turn to P*fl* A 24)
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