Protected by: Connecticut Farmland Trust
Year Protected: 2018
Acres: 47.5
In November of 2018, Wilbur Farm in Woodstock, a conservation-minded couple who saw the importance of protecting their land against encroaching development from regional urban areas, protected their farm forever.
Paul Wilbur has worked to improve the 47.5-acre farm that has been in his wife Florence’s family for generations.
“We busted our humps to put this place back together, build a barn, clear pastures and get things cleaned up,” Paul Wilbur said. “I don’t want to see it go to house lots after all that effort.”
Wilbur grew up cutting hay in Smithfield, Rhode Island, and later saw the fields disappear into commercial and residential developments. “It was a very rural town and I saw what happened. All the old apple orchards are now housing developments and traffic is a nightmare,” he said. “I could see Woodstock going in the same direction because it’s an ideal location for development between Hartford, Boston, Worcester and Providence.”
We were so happy to work with the Wilbur family to preserve their land, which boasts farm fields that are 100 percent prime and statewide important farmland soils. The farm was once a small-scale chicken and dairy farm and later became a beef and hay farm. It has been a haying operation for the last eight years.
When the Wilburs donated their conservation easement, they specifically chose CFT because it supports smaller farms. “Other groups are looking for 200- to 400-acre parcels and smaller farms sort of fall in the hole where there isn’t much support for preservation,” Wilbur said. “CFT fits that niche and is willing to work with smaller farms.”
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