302 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY 



ward direction. I would like to suggest to the panel that they make 

 a strong recommendation that any user fee charged for technical serv- 

 ices made available to private landowners be seriously questioned. 

 We should make this technical service available to farmers without 

 cost. 



PHILLIP ALAMPI. We have in New Jersey the highest land tax 

 in the Nation. In order to assess farmland on an agricultural use 

 basis rather than on the basis of nearby industrial land values, we 

 had to seek a public referendum to revise constitutional provisions 

 relating to property assessment. This we did in the Garden State 

 with a program identified not only as a project to preserve agricul- 

 ture but also to "Save Open Spaces". The referendum was ap- 

 proved by a majority of 3 to 1, and now qualified farmers who have 

 5 acres or more are taxed on the capacity of that land to produce 

 agricultural crops and not on the basis of adjacent industrialized 

 or residential land areas. 



In considering the difficulty of preserving agriculture in highly 

 urbanized New Jersey, I think this is a lesson for other States con- 

 cerned with the loss of farmland. It also presents an opportunity 

 to the fellow who would like to invest in farmland and make a profit 

 after paying a rollback penalty. Such a three-year rollback tax 

 must be paid when the land is sold for a higher use. To a degree, 

 this discourages the speculator from buying up a lot of farmland. 

 Our experience in New Jersey may offer a challenge to residents 

 of other States who would like to maintain, at least for a period, 

 more open space as an asset to our urbanized society. 



Dr. JOHN CAREW. I wish to respond to those delegates who imply 

 that the preservation of the small family farm and less modern farm- 

 ing methods are valid means of maintaining the beauty of our farm 

 landscape. Natural beauty and efficiency in commercial agriculture 

 are totally compatible. Large size, mechanization, crop specializa- 

 tion and the use of pesticides are generally synonymous with farm- 

 ing efficiency. These characteristics are no more antibeauty than 

 smallness, hand labor, crop diversity, and an abundance of weeds, in- 

 sects, and diseases. There can be as much beauty in a 500-acre 

 apple orchard tilled and managed with modern equipment and free 

 of weeds, worms, and scab as there is in a 20-tree planting, pruned by 

 hand and unprotected from a host of pests. There can be as much 

 beauty in a modern well-landscaped and well-designed food process- 

 ing plant as there is in a tiny cider press nestled in the woods. 



