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32 <br />Walters Farm, Orange County <br />conservation easement purchased by <br />Orange County <br />Victor Walters, aged 92, has farmed this land for nearly 60 years, and his son wants to <br />keep the land in family farming. Mr Walters bought this land for $8 per acre in 1941, and now it <br />is valued at about $4,000 per acre. Now residential subdivision is a real probability and threat to <br />continuation of farming in this area in western Orange County, only a few miles from Interstate 40 <br />and US Highway 70 near Efland and Mebane. This is the first farmland protection project of the <br />new Orange County Land Legacy Program. Local funds were used to match the state Farmland <br />Preservation Trust Fund grant for the purchase of non -farm development rights over 70 of the <br />family's total 255 acre farm (113 owned by Mr. Walters, Sr.). <br />This farm in the Cedar Grove Township is one of the few surviving dairy farms in the <br />county. The parcel placed under easement is used for grazing of dairy and beef cattle by Mr.' <br />Walters' son. The farm is enrolled in a voluntary Agriculture Protection District and contains <br />significant prime soils. The farm is also located in the Back Creek public water supply watershed. <br />The family has long employed best management practices for protection of water quality and <br />exemplary land stewardship. <br />The portion of the farm placed under conservation easement has 900 feet of frontage on <br />High Rock Road, one of the county's more scenic rural roads, which gives the public beautiful <br />pastoral vistas over the farm's rolling pastures, forests, and a farm pond. The County expects to <br />expand its farmland protection over other farm units nearby. - <br />