Measurable Endeavors

by Linda Kendall

lose readers of this newsletter may have noted that RVLT has grown significantly in recent months. From December 2000 to December 2001, three new properties brought 210 acres into our stewardship, raising the total acreage to 475. Now, just as we end our first decade of effort, we are approaching an acreage milestone, as well. Milestones, of course, are for measuring progress. So: how significant is 500 acres, after all? How might we describe its value?

In gross quantitative detail, we hold conservation easements on eight properties in Lenawee and Washtenaw Counties. The smallest lot is one acre, the largest is 156 acres and the median size is 52 acres. We have been growing at an average rate of 47.5 acres/year.

In the context of the whole Raisin Valley Watershed, is 500 acres even a drop in the bucket? Consider the pioneering Lenawee County farmer’s perspective in 1830: laid before him were a few good farming acres, and another 375,000 acres that had to be “improved.” The job must have seemed monumental, and it was — but it was done in 70 years, by a few families with relatively crude tools. It was a huge investment and a gigantic risk. Our challenge is to work as steadily as they did, to protect their legacy and the wilder things we also hold dear.

Following are more figures to give context to the 500 entrusted acres.

1. 488,575: total Lenawee County area, in acres

2. 95,078: area of unimproved lands in Lenawee County farms in 1900 (acres)

3. 374,770: area of improved lands in Lenawee County farms in 1900 (acres)

4. 469,848; 425,009; 336,468: total farmland area in Lenawee County in 1900; 1950; 2000 (acres)

5. 20,115: gallons of soymilk that could be produced from an average yield per acre of soy beans on 500 acres in Lenawee County

6. 375: number of houses that could be built on 500 acres at a one-acre density level reduced by 25% to account for roads and other infrastructure

7. 47,700: area of forest land in Lenawee county in 1980 (acres)

8. 461,593: average volume of wood on 500 acres of forest land in Lenawee county in 1980 (cubic feet)

9. 22,023: average net annual growth of wood on 500 acres of forest land in Lenawee County in 1980 (cubic feet)

10. 500: number of oak trees on 500 acres in a pre-settlement Oak Barren

11. 335: gallons of gasoline consumed by a John Deere lawn tractor with a 20 hp engine and a 4 foot deck, mowing 500 acres at 4 miles per hour.

12. 257.5: hours it would take to mow 500 acres of turf grass using a lawn tractor with a 4 foot deck, at 4 miles per hour

13. 232: range in acres of a nursing female Indiana Bat, a federally endangered species found breeding in Lenawee County in 2001

14. 4: number of breeding pairs of sandhill cranes that could be sustained on 500 acres of mixed wetland/woodland

Sources

1 Draft Lenawee County Land Use Plan  2, 3, 4 Lenawee County Census  5 Lenawee County Farm Service Agency (45 bushels/acre = loan deficiency quota) and National Soybean Research Laboratory, College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana — Champaign (1/3 cup soybeans per gallon of milk)  6 Region 2 Planning Commission  7, 8, 9 Jerold T. Hahn, Timber Resource of Michigan’s Southern Lower Peninsula, 1980   10 L. Brewer and J Vankat, The Vegetation of the Oak Openings of Northwest Ohio at the Time of Euro-American Settlement, 1993  11 John Deere Customer Service (1.3 gallons consumed per hour of operation).  12 John Deere Customer Service  13 Michigan Natural Features Inventory. Click here for website.  14 Brewer, McPeek, Adams, Atlas of Breeding Birds of Michigan. Michigan State University Press, 1991

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