A 325-year-old Southbury farm that is home to one of the oldest barns in Connecticut is the latest to be permanently protected for agricultural use under the state’s Farmland Preservation Program (FPP), state Agriculture Commissioner Steven K. Reviczky said today. .
Ragland Farm was created in 1690 by Benjamin Stiles, who that same year built the barn as required to receive a land grant from the King of England.
“In order to get a grant you had to establish that you would live on the land year-round,” said twelfth-generation namesake and current owner Benjamin Stiles, who raises Christmas trees and produces maple syrup. “So the first thing they built was a barn to house the animals in the winter.”
The deep-red English barn, listed on a survey of historic barns by the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation, is the visual centerpiece of the 23-acre farm.
It is now being used to store oak planks harvested from the property that Stiles is using to renovate the 1740 farmhouse that fronts busy Route 6 in the Southbury Historic District.
A small portion of the farm, which is nearly all prime and statewide important soils, extends over the town line into Woodbury.
The farm is the third to be protected under the FPP’s Community Farms Preservation Program (CFPP), which encourages municipalities to support protection of smaller farms of local importance that may be closer to population centers and might not meet the criteria of the FPP.
Combined, the programs have preserved 315 farms and more than 41,500 acres of farmland through owners conveying development rights to the state.
“Leveraging funding through partnerships with local, state and federal partners gives municipalities added opportunities to protect working lands that are important to local communities,” Commissioner Reviczky said.
Approximately 30 municipalities have completed the steps needed to protect farmland under the CFPP, and Reviczky encourages all municipalities to consider participating in the program.
Community support in the Ragland Farm preservation included a financial contribution to the agreement that was approved by Southbury voters at a town meeting last summer.
The USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) also was a key financial partner in the preservation.
"Conservation easement programs have benefits on multiple levels," said Connecticut NRCS State Conservationist Thomas L. Morgart. "They keep the land available for farming, improve agricultural viability, and encourage on-farm conservation. And, because prices of protected land are often lower than comparable unprotected land, it can allow new and beginning farmers access to land they might not otherwise be able to afford."
Benjamin Stiles, a retired teacher, said preserving the farm for agricultural use in perpetuity was very important to him and his wife Sharon, who do all the work on the farm themselves.
Prior to that, the long line of owners in the Stiles family used the farm to grow their own food and raise animals, but did not do so commercially. The Stiles now sell about 250-300 cut-your-own trees a season, as well as 100 to 150 gallons of maple syrup.
Future plans include having the farm being taken over by the Stiles’ daughter, Sarah, a graduate of nearby Nonnewaug High School’s agriscience and technology program who intends to pursue a degree in horticulture.
“My goal was to make sure this stays as farmland,” Stiles said as he walked the farm last week. “And if for some reason my daughter can’t keep it, this will allow her to sell it but it will always be a farm.”
For now, the Stiles are busy tending to customers who select a bow saw hanging on the outside of the sugarhouse and head out to cut their tree on the rolling property that contains about 10,000 trees in various stages of growth.
“We started selling the day after Thanksgiving and as soon as the sun came up we went crazy,” Benjamin Stiles said. “We’ve sold a hundred trees already.”
They raise mostly Blue Spruce, and plant about 500 new trees each season. Most species typically mature to about 6-feet-tall in roughly seven years, but Stiles has found evergreens to be a quirky and often high-maintenance crop.
“There are so many diseases and pests it’s unbelievable,” he said, noting how much time he spends in the fields with his backpack pesticide sprayer and pruning shears. “You’ll have a 5-foot tree next to a 1-foot tree and I know they were planted on the same day. The thing is, you try something new and it takes five or six years to find out if it works.”
Last winter’s heavy snow blanketed the lower portion of trees for months, he said, and seemed to spark a growing pattern where the top vertical “leader” sprouted up several feet, but had few or no horizontal branches.
“So now I’ve got a whole section of tree with no branches,” Stiles said. “What do you do with them?
They typically donate unsellable trees to the Nonnewaug school, where students turn them into wreaths sold as a fundraiser.
Proceeds from the conveyance of development rights to the farm will be used to invest in the farm’s infrastructure, including renovating the farmhouse and planting Plantation Maple trees that Stiles said are touted as being able to produce an extraordinary amount of sap from just a thin sapling.
“That’s what they say, anyway,” Stiles said with a grin as he pointed out the area planned for the maples. “We’ll see what happens.”
Photo: Benjamin Stiles adjusts a giant wreath hung on a barn built in 1690 on his Ragland Farm in Southbury.