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Preserving
Wilderness and Farm Land
Smith County Saves It's First Farm
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Butterfly Hollow Farm ____ The Path Leading Us Here ____ How The Farm Got Its Name ____ Restoring the Old Farmhouse ____ Where The Beefalo Roam ____ Saddle Up The Horses ____ Saving Wilderness and Farm Land ____ Farm Journals ____ Sharing The Farm ____ Guest Book ____ Site Map ____ |
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When
Tom Beasley returned here from an Army stint in Vietnam, he noticed
a change in the farm that had been in his family since 1803. "I realized
how many big trees were gone," said Beasley, a Nashville businessman
who lives in Burns, Tenn. The culprit? Cattle. They stomp down the
earth around trees, compacting the soil so the roots die. They eat
the leaves and tear up the bark. "Cattle are devastating to trees,"
said Beasley, bucking the family tradition of raising cattle along
with row crops. You won't find any cattle on the green, rolling Smith County land today, only crops and trees -- lots and lots of trees, including 200 acres of poplars, oaks, walnuts and pines that Beasley has planted in the past decade. To make sure this changes little, Beasley made plans to adopt a conservation easement, overseen by The Land Trust for Tennessee, that will prevent his more than 400 acres of farmland and forest from ever being split into tiny tracts for houses or strip malls. The nonprofit Land Trust, one of 1,200 such trusts nationally, helps landowners preserve farms, scenic views, historic landscapes and river corridors, shielding them from urban sprawl. "We're proud to be your partner in protecting it," Phil Bredesen, former Nashville mayor and chairman of the land trust, told Beasley in a ceremony at Cummins Station in Nashville. Bredesen, long a promoter of urban greenways, said he favors growth but doesn't want the "achingly beautiful" Tennessee countryside that makes the state special to be sacrificed. Fields once bare from grazing are thick with trees. White oaks are budding with the first nubs of this year's acorns, to be enjoyed by the deer, turkey and other wildlife that now congregate there. Blackberries ripen in the underbrush that shelters wild birds. Silver maple and ash trees hang out over a point in the land where Dixon's Creek meets the Cumberland River. The green-banked river here bears little resemblance to the same Cumberland downstream, where it runs between steep eroding banks through downtown Nashville. On the property to one side of this piece of Beasley's land, red and white stakes mark off boundaries where the neighboring farm was divided into tracts and sold. That's a profitable way to sell a farm. But there are benefits, too, to what Beasley is doing. "The value of carving the land up into small tracts is pretty fleeting," Beasley said. "What you get out of it compared to what you give up is a wide disparity." While the idea of letting go of any property rights is foreign to many in the farming community, it should be considered, he said. "If you want your children and grandchildren to continue to farm, this would allow them to do that." Turning over the development rights works as a tax-deductible contribution. It also reduces the land's value, which means lower property taxes and paying less estate taxes when the owner dies. The true benefit is a generation or so away, Beasley said, when undeveloped land will be invaluable. Beasley's land is about to undergo an appraisal, and a plan will be set up that would allow descendants or an outside buyer to divide the land, but only into large, 40-acre or so parcels, and to erect a house, but no commercial buildings. Some scenic views, however, can never be changed.
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info@butterflyhollow.com
Butterfly
Hollow
Gordonsville,
TN 38563