Sometimes in the dark of the night, sometimes in broad daylight, they appear on Cletus Hamilton's farmland - strangely twisted grooves carved into the soil; woven patterns that seem to be communicating something.
But these crop circles, which scar the alfalfa, barley and wheat fields of Hamilton's huge farm near Riverton, are no mystery. Their origin is clear.They are tire tracks.
And the message they convey is the same one being delivered by the housing subdivisions, the sewer lines, the paved roads and the unfamiliar people, which also seem to be popping up out of nowhere: It might be time to move on.
"See these tracks down in here? That's my wheat," Hamilton says, pointing to a field off 13400 South, just east of Herriman. "Kids like to drive around on it when it's newly planted, or else when it's snowing. They like to get their trucks dirty.
"When I catch these kids I tell 'em, `Hey, you want us outta here, you just keep doing what you're doing. We don't have to stay.' "
Hamilton has worked the family farm all his life, carrying on a tradition his father and uncle began in the 1930s. With more than 700 acres of his own farmland, and another 1,400 in leased crop land around him, he has one of the largest farm operations remaining in Salt Lake County.
Thanks to unprecedented growth in the 1990s, the city is practically at Hamilton's doorstep. With Micron Technology Inc. set to build a production facility a dozen miles away, and with the city of Riverton coveting much of his land for annexation, Hamilton wonders how long he can hold out. He was recently contacted by an investment group interested in buying the farm and developing it.
"We have been spoiled out here for a number of years," Hamilton says, peering out his living room window for a pristine view of the Wasatch Mountains. "We've watched our neighbors leave and go to Idaho or wherever they've gone. . . . We've had the best of both worlds, but it's coming.
"I could finish here. I'm 60 years old. One of my boys especially wants to leave so he can get into a farm community and raise his family. The schools are crowded, churches are full - you name it."
The same conditions have chased dozens of farmers out of Salt Lake County, or out of business altogether. Between 1982 and 1992, the number of farms here fell from 805 to 686, and the amount of land in agricultural production dropped from 174,172 acres to 107,663. Much of the growth in Hamilton's neck of the woods has taken place since 1991, and state agriculture officials expect the next counts, to be taken in 1997, will show an even more dramatic loss of farmland in the county.
Dale Bateman's dairy farm in West Jordan could be one of the casualties.
"It's a difficult thing to maintain farm practices in an urban setting," says Bateman, a fifth-generation farmer who founded Bate-man Dairy Farms Inc. in 1946 along with his brother Dean. "Everybody likes to have an open field in their back yard, but when we go in to bale the hay in the middle of the night or we need to spray a crop to kill the bugs, well, you can understand what happens."
The 78-year-old Bateman, who must drive his tractor several miles from his crop land to the dairy, is accustomed to being honked at, yelled at and even cursed by impatient motorists. Increasingly, people are trespassing on his land, damaging crops.
Two of his sons and two nephews now do most of the work, and it is for them that Bateman and his brother are planning to move the operation, perhaps to Tooele County or Juab County.
And what, then, will become of the farm?
"I think its destiny is housing - housing and industry," Bateman says. "We've talked about trying to preserve a piece of it as open space, but the expense of that could only be taken care of if it is supported somewhat by the county or city . . . by a lot of people contributing their tax money."
And the chance of that happening, Dale Ballard claims, is remote.
Ballard, one of 10 children raised on a 10-acre farm in Draper, has risen to prominence in the professional world. But for all the wealth and power Ballard may have accumulated as president of Ballard Medical Products, he feels helpless to save his farm, which now covers 190 acres in the heart of Draper.
Ballard and his attorney have researched ways to prevent development, like placing the farm in a conservation easement or designating it as an agricultural area with the state. But neither method would stop the city from condemning the land in an emergency, Ballard says.
"Like every time they need a road," he says with more than a touch of scorn.
Draper Mayor Elaine Redd, like Riverton Mayor Sandra Lloyd, says her city would like to preserve farm-land as open space and even retain working farms if possible.
"Lip service, that's all it is," says Ballard, 72, who loses $8,000 a year trying to keep his farm in business. "I don't think any city wants farm ground. There's no indication that they do. We wonder if they're interested in preserving anything."
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Additional Information
Farm facts
Salt Lake County
Total Farms
1982 805
1987 734
1992 686
Crop Farms
1982 595
1987 524
1992 495
Total Farm Acres
1982 174,172
1987 155,398
1992 107,663
SOURCE: Utah Agricultural Statistic Service