Nearly 40 years ago, Lee Davis sent a letter to his neighbors, asking them to let him know if they ever became interested in selling their property. His plan? To add it to the already conserved 300-acre farm his father owned in Kent County, Maryland.
In July, the 29 acres connected to the 300-acre Bell Rose Farm joined the family farm in a permanent conservation, area tangible extension of his family’s values and commitment to conservation.
Bell Rose Farm—owned by the Davis family—was originally conserved by Lee Davis’s father through the Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation. The family has restored wetlands across the property, in addition to planting more than 1,400 trees including pine, oak, and American persimmon. The variety of wildlife habitat on-site has welcomed deer, doves, owls, hawks, bald eagles, waterfowl, muskrats, and beavers.
Lee and Joyce Davis’s farm permanently protects more than eight acres of productive farmland, six acres of fern-filled woodland, and more than 11 acres of grassland buffers. The grasslands and woodlands in particular play an important role in buffering the East Fork of Langford Creek which winds its way through the farm’s woodlands.
“The Davis’s Kent County easement brings the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy’s (ESLC) conservation in Kent County to more than 14,713 acres,” says Steve Kline, ESLC President and CEO. “Bell Rose Farm joins 78 permanent ESLC conservation easements in Kent County that protect the area’s iconic rolling open views while defending productive farmland, open space, and vulnerable habitat from the increasing pressure of development and commercial solar.”
With 1175 feet of scenic road frontage on Bell Rose Lane, the easement protects an easily accessible property that’s vulnerable to development. “If we wanted to sell it, I could make one phone call and sell it for four times what we’re getting for the easement,” says Lee Davis. “I’m in real estate and I’ve done some development. There’s only so much farmland. We want to preserve this for the future. I have grandchildren coming along. And we’d like to keep it as it is. We looked at solar panels, but life isn’t all about money. Money can’t buy you health and happiness. ESLC has helped us to restore something forever.”
