FSCAP Certified Steward
Stewardship Certification and Assessment Program (FSCAP) Maryland Association of Soil Conservation Districts 53 Slama Road, Edgewater MD 21037 · 410 - 956 - 5771 www.mascd.net · [email protected] · [email protected]
Farm
[email protected] 209 Jarman Branch Dr., Centreville, MD 21617 (p) 443-262-8491
Mt. Airy of Maiden’s Choice near Clear Spring, Washington County, is a 140-acre field crop and forestry operation. It is within Evan Shelby’s eighteenth century Maiden’s Choice land grant and part of Mt. Airy Stock Farm purchased by Fred and Ora Ernst in 1943. When sisters Vera Mae and Betty inherited the acreage in 1989, they rented pasture to dairy and then beef operations. At the same time, they and their husbands complemented the existing woodland by planting and maintaining several thousand hardwood trees for timber
production and conservation. In the early 2000s, their late brother, Carlton, and his son, Steve (the first certified conservation steward in Maryland), converted the pasture and began raising traditional crops with continuous no-till. Other conservation practices have included riparian buffers, stream fencing, drainage enhancement, grass waterways, ponds, Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP), and sustainable forestry. In 2000, the farm entered a conservation easement with the Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation (MALPF).
Contact: [email protected]; www.mascd.net/FSCAP/farm_list.html
Mt. Airy of Maiden’s Choice Betty Ernst Bauer and Art and Vera Mae Ernst Shultz
