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Happy Apples in Readfield

February 09, 2010 - KENTS HILL -- Kents Hill Orchard will be farmland "forever."

Maine Farmland Trust announced Monday it had completed its purchase of the 84-acre orchard along Route 17 -- a signature parcel of productive Readfield cropland that captured the attention of residents and preservationists.

The sale price was not disclosed but was described in a news release from the Trust as "below its appraised value" of $356,000.

Trust officials had said the final cost of the project would be $125,000 after the farm is placed under conservation easement and resold.

The Belfast-based Trust said the deal drew at least $22,000 in donations -- including $10,000 from the George Fund of the Kennebec Land Trust. Maine Farmland Trust also was to receive a federal grant to cover half the easement value. Maine Farmland Trust took out a loan to complete the sale financing.

Winthrop-based Kennebec Land Trust owns land abutting the orchard.

"The orchard has beautiful views, easy access to Augusta and excellent soils," Maine Farmland Trust Executive Director John Piotti said.

"All of these things make it a great farm, but they also make it highly susceptible to development," he said.


Members of the Kents Hill and Readfield communities helped raise funds to support the purchase from retiring farmers Henry and Corrine Drake.
"We're happy it's over," Corrine Drake, 75, said Monday. "And we're happy it's going to be forever a farm."

She said she and her husband would remain in their home on approximately a dozen acres abutting the orchard.

"We're down-earth farmers," she said, but "we'll enjoy not having to get up at 4 in the morning."

The Drakes farmed the orchard for 35 years and was committed to seeing it continue as a farm, Piotti said.

Likewise, the community backed the effort to preserve the acreage, which Piotti had called "a community institution."

More than 30 people crowded into a cafe in December 2009 to learn about the deal. By the end of the 90-minute information session, some were opening up their checkbooks to lend support.

The property had been on the market more than a year.

Reselling Kents Hill Orchard to a new farmer is part of a larger effort to find young people to replace retiring farmers, Piotti said.

"The biggest barrier to getting new farmers on the land is the cost of that property," he said.

The Trust still must finalize portions of its funding for the easement and market the property for sale. It had previously lined up a buyer -- a young couple interested in maintaining the orchard and raising pigs -- but the deal fell through.

One-third of Maine's best farmland will be in transition within the next 15 years, said Piotti, a Democrat from Unity who represents several Waldo County and Kennebec County towns in the Legislature and serves as House majority leader.

"Much of that farmland is likely to be lost to development unless active steps are taken to preserve it," said Piotti. "That's why we've set a goal to protect 100,000 acres of farmland within the next five years. That's the scale necessary if we are to make meaningful impact."

The Drakes are just happy to be full-time retirees.


"We have an RV we'll be traveling in, but this is home," Corinne Drake said. "We kept 11 or so acres and we have vegetable gardens and still some apple trees."
But as to the orchard: "We'll be stepping away totally ... as far as I know," she said.

"Hopefully, it will prosper."

by Bob Mentzinger, Kennebec Journal, February 9, 2010

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