The survey helped steer the plan toward water quality and farmland conservation.

The motivation for the Williamson Act is to promote voluntary land conservation, particularly farmland conservation.

The Bentons were also afraid that the state's master plan for farmland conservation would lead to 40-acre zoning - which would prevent any future development and cut his farm's real estate value in half.

Margaret Rockefeller, who worked on behalf of farmland conservation, the American Farmland Trust, the New York Botanical Garden and the New York Philharmonic, died yesterday at New York Hospital.