When she preserved the first farm in Lancaster County, the late Frances Bear, a Martic Township environmentalist, said, "I wanted other people to get the idea."

Since Bear donated the preservation easement on her 87-acre farm to the county commissioners in March 1980, hundreds of other Lancastrians have gotten the idea and the preservation movement has blossomed.

Bear's farm hasn't changed much in 30 years. About 25 acres remain tillable; the rest is woodland in Tucquan Glen.

John Irwin bought the property from Bear in 1995. He lives in the farmhouse and rents his acreage to a nearby farmer to grow corn, alfalfa and barley.

"The preservation made no difference to me," says Irwin, who has put the farm on the market again. "I only liked the preservation designation because it meant someone cared about the land."

Three decades after the first farms were preserved here, preservation easements seem not to be crucial factors in land transactions.

Easements don't necessarily increase or reduce the value of land, according to landowners. They don't enhance or diminish the ability to farm. They simply restrict the land's use to agriculture.

Selling or donating easements does reflect an abiding love and respect for the land. Of the first 10 farm preservers, six still own their properties. None regrets giving up the right to sell their land for development.

Easements also provide an example to nearby properties to remain in farming. The fears of some early farmers that their preserved land could become islands in seas of development have not been realized.

Gilbert Brenneman, whose farm on Bainbridge Road near Elizabethtown was preserved by George and Patricia Baum in 1982, now is surrounded mostly by preserved farms.

That's partially a result of the county commissioners' decision several years ago to go out of their way to preserve "clusters" of farms.

But Baum's deed restriction was not important to Brenneman. He says it didn't affect his interest in the land or the price he paid for it.

"We bought it because we felt this is where God wanted us to be," he says of his 95-acre dairy farm. "I probably would not have preserved it myself because we wouldn't want government money for it."

Many of the early easements were donated by farmers who sought no compensation. Others were sold or donated for only 25 years because farmers weren't certain they wanted to surrender their development rights forever.

But almost all of those 25-year terms have since been made permanent, a testament to the idea that preserving land in perpetuity has taken hold.

Lloyd High, a 74-year-old self-described "hobby farmer" who owns the seventh farm preserved by the county, made his 25-year easement permanent a little over a year ago.

Originally he had donated the easement. This time he took the county's maximum current payment — $4,000 an acre — for his 53-acre corn and vegetable farm outside Rothsville. He also gets a tax break from Warwick Township.

"The other people are collecting it and I didn't want this farm chopped up for development," High explains.

Richard Williammee and his late wife, Dorothy, donated an easement on 33 acres on Sanctuary Road near Manheim in 1984. It was the fifth farm preserved in the county.

"I probably lost a lot of money doing that, but God only gave us so much land," he says. "I'm only a steward of it."

In fact, like Irwin and several other first preservers, Williammee is letting someone else serve as steward now. He lives in the farmhouse and a neighbor tends cows on the property.

The surrounding countryside has remained much the same over the years. Housing has moved in on one side, but farms border all others.

"At first this land was more valuable for housing," comments Williammee, "but that has changed. Now it's worth more preserved than as housing."

Thomas Zartman preserved his farm on Hilltop Road northwest of Ephrata in 1984. He sold the easement for $17,500 and then bought another farm and preserved it, too.

Zartman is sold on farming and his son is carrying on the tradition with him.

"We've got to keep our good prime farmland open," Zartman says. "We've got to keep it producing food, not build it shut."

When the private Lancaster Farmland Trust formed in 1988, more farmers began donating or selling easements. Gene Garber was first to preserve farms with the Trust.

After retiring from Major League Baseball in the summer of 1988, Garber came home to a debate about whether or not to rezone and develop a farm in his native West Donegal Township.

Within a three-mile radius of his home farm, Garber counted 336 houses built during the previous 25 years

That's too many, he told West Donegal's supervisors, who turned down the rezoning request.

Then Garber went farther. So that no one could ever debate whether to develop his farms, he permanently preserved them.

"It wasn't an easy decision," says the former star relief pitcher who now chairs the county's Agricultural Preserve Board. "I thought, 'What if I'm the only guy who preserves my farm and there's development all around it?' But somebody has to take the first step."

Garber sparked a movement to preserve in East and West Donegal. They are now are the most densely preserved townships in Lancaster County.

Another early preserver through the Trust was Virginia Brady, a longtime supervisor in Pequea Township. She donated the easement to her 40-acre farm along Pequea Creek south of Willow Street in 1989.

The preserve was a joint project of the Farmland Trust and the county.

Brady's farm is surrounded by other farms, some preserved, some not. As younger farmers, many of them Amish, move into the area, she says, the chances that the area will remain agricultural increase, with or without preservation.

"This farm would bring the same price whether or not it was preserved," she adds. "At this point, preservation is certainly viable. Farming in general is viable and should continue that way."

jbrubaker@lnpnews.com