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B. Petitioners’ Tree Farm
1. Starting the Tree Farm
Sometime before 1979, petitioners bought an 85-acre farm for
$78,300. Much of the farm was covered with trees, including
hawthorns, walnuts, and oaks. Petitioners lived in a trailer
while they built a house on the farm. They began living in the
house around 1984. Petitioner removed large amounts of brush and
thorns and cultivated about 40 acres of the land by himself.
Around 1990, petitioners began to plant evergreen trees on
their land. Petitioner had planted about 2,000 seedlings by the
end of 1993. He planted about 1,000 trees in 1993, but most of
them died in a severe drought that year.
Petitioner spent about 15 to 20 hours per week on this
activity in 1994 and 1995. He spent most of that time in 1994
building an irrigation pond and dam, for which he paid
contractors $10,403 in 1994. The pond provided water for a
pumping system that could reach about 1,000 feet from the pond.
He did not plant many trees in 1994 because he built the
irrigation pond. He was involved in time-consuming litigation
over the pond with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and a
neighboring hunting club in 1995 and 1996.
In 1994 and 1995, petitioner bought gravel to build an
access road on the farm. Petitioners used their own equipment to
build the road. Petitioner bought equipment such as a compressor
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