Re: a local Bay Area story

Rick, your story of good farmland being saved is remarkable.
In California we have seen Santa Clara County, containing exceptional
soil-supposedly only 7% of the earth's soil is like it-being developed (I
used to visit friends with thriving prune and apricot orchards in the
1940s) in my lifetime into Silicon Valley.
Elly Bade
Berkeley, CA
On Thu, 1 Feb 2001, Richard F. Dufresne wrote:

> At 12:11 PM 1/31/2001 -0800, you wrote:
> >All:
> >
> >     Maybe the Mediterranean Garden Society needs to
> >"lease" this land from Mr. Ancinelli and begin an
> >experimental and display "Mediterranean Farm, Orchard
> >and Vineyard".
> >
> >     With grants from large corporations, including
> >agricultural organizations, and trusts, this could be
> >quite a development.
> >
> >     I can't imagine anyone NOT buying into this,
> >including the current owner.
> >
> >     What's everyone's thoughts?
> >
> >Joe Seals
> >Santa Maria, California
> >"the epitome of the Mediterranean climate"
> >
> Joe:
>
> I have been the beneficiary of a plan in Massachusetts to buy the
> development rights of farmland.  My paternal grandfather starte the farm
> around 1904 in Granby, then it was run by my father and his siblings until
> 1961.  None of the third generation wanted to run it, and much of the
> non-arable land was given to the town as a park.  I and my four siblings got
> to inherit a 17 acre lot, and this was rented out for farm crops and then
> truck farming.  The soil was a nice sandy loam that was stripped of humus by
> the farmer that grew corn year after year.  My brother-in-law in Hadley has
> almost pure loam.
>
> An area truck farmer took it over, then another made a bid for it.  We
> entered the property into the program, and the truck farmer bought it for
> the farm value, and we children got the full value, the rest (the
> development rights) bought by the state.  I am extremely happy that we don't
> have either a shopping center or a housing development there, since the lots
> represent some of the best soil in New England.
>
> The central Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts has this land by the result
> of deposits from two huge glacial lakes.  In hard times, what is left of
> this land in Hatfield, Hadley, Amherst, and Granby will help feed a lot of
> families.
>
> And I raised some of the healthiest Salvias and Mediterranran plants I've
> been able to grow in that soil.
>
> Richard F. Dufresne
> 313 Spur Road
> Greensboro, North Carolina  27406 USA
> 336-674-3105
> World of Salvias web page:
> http://www.eclectasy.com/gallery_of_salvias/index.htm
> or
> http://home.infinet.mindspring.com/~salvia/salvia.htm (to be phased out)
>
>
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