Land Group Working to Preserve Connecticut Farm
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SHEFFIELD, Mass. — A state conservation group is trying to raise funds to protect a swath of Connecticut farmland along the Housatonic River.
The 77-acre farm in Salisbury abuts Bartholomew's Cobble in Ashley Falls, home to some 700 plant varieties and used by 250 different nesting and migrating birds.
"I really want to protect this farm," said owner John Bottass, looking across a field of winter rye to the Housatonic River at the edge of his land recently. Bottass, 70, has been working his neatly run Shady Maple Farm on Weatogue Road since 1966, often with the help of his two sons.
Facing retirement, he approached The Trustees of Reservations, which owns and manages the adjacent Cobble, for help in conserving the land.
"We were just thrilled when we got the call," said Rene Wendell, conservation ranger for Bartholomew's Cobble. "John's farm stretches a mile along the river — a stretch where we see bald eagles on our canoe trips — and the tip of our Spero Trail has an amazing view across his fields with the river and the mountains as a backdrop. It's a really important piece of land to protect."
The Trustees need to raise another $145,000 to complete the purchase of the conservation easement on the land this spring, and permanently protect it from further development while still enabling Bottass to own and farm it.
The Trustees expect to spend $815,000 total for the restriction, including surveying, appraisal and legal expense. The group has raised the bulk of the money with help of local land trusts and private donations but is still $145,000 short.
Lee Alexander, community conservation specialist with The Trustees, said other land preservation groups have stepped forward to help in saving Shady Maple.
"The Salisbury Land Trust reached out and raised almost $50,000 from its local membership," she said. "The community is pulling together to make this happen."
She described the support from the Salisbury area as "very heartening." Many in the area grew up knowing the farm and recognize it as an important agricultural component of the community, said Alexander on Tuesday. "They want to see it protected."
 Photos courtesy Trustees of Reservations
 The 77-acre farm lies along the Housatonic River and contains fragile floodplain forests critical to migrating birds.  |
"We are all passionate about protecting the incredibly scenic farmland and rich historical, cultural and ecological legacy of the Housatonic Valley, and we can conserve that landscape more effectively by working together," Alexander said.
The beauty of the river valley was immortalized by naturalist and writer Hal Borland and has remained largely unchanged since his last New York Times editorial nearly 30 years ago.
The Shady Maple Farm "provides great ecological, agricultural and scenic benefits to our town," said George Massey, co-chairman with Lou Hecht of the Salisbury Land Trust.
Thousands of visitors hike, picnic and canoe annually through the more than 300 acres of the Cobble, a National Natural Landmark.
Bottass has been a good neighbor to Bartholomew's Cobble, said Wendell, and worked with the Trustees in ensuring habitat for local bobolinks as the wide grasslands needed to support the birds have shrunken over the years because of development and early mowing schedules.
"For years now, John has partnered with us on managing the Cobble's hayfields for the benefit of both breeding bobolinks and agricultural productivity," said Wendell.
Conserving the property will complement the ongoing agricultural stewardship along the Housatonic River that has protected fragile habitats for wildlife, such as the river's floodplain forests for migrating songbirds, said Jason Miner, director of The Nature Conservancy's Berkshire Taconic Landscape Program.
"The river in this area is amazingly dynamic – rising in the spring, overflowing its banks and replenishing the soils of the floodplain and the unique mix of species that comprise floodplain forests," he said.
The farm would join some 16,000 acres of private land held in conservation restriction by The Trustees and only the second piece outside Massachusetts. The Trustees' Mountain Meadows is mostly in Williamstown but a section lies over the Vermont border in Pownal.
Alexander said the group isn't looking to expand over the Massachusetts border, but the proximity of the farm, its being an integral part of the larger habitat and Bottass' collaboration in the management of the area has made it an important piece for preservation.
Besides, she noted, "Nature doesn't recognize state lines."
Contributions toward the protection of Shady Maple Farm may be sent to: The Trustees of Reservations, c/o Bartholomew's Cobble, P.O. Box 128, Ashley Falls, MA 01222.
