Bradford County’s agricultural landscape reflects a long history of managing land and water resources to support both profitable crops and a healthy environment through conservation practices seen across the county. Contour strip cropping uses alternating 100-foot-wide strips of soil-covering crops and row crops, with grass strips that slow runoff and reduce erosion where row crops leave soil exposed. Hundreds of miles of permanently vegetated diversion ditches intercept surface water and slow runoff in a non-erosive manner, often on long sloping fields and upslope of buildings and animal holding areas. Barnyard runoff contains high amounts of sediment and nutrients, and this runoff can be filtered naturally through grass. Manure storage systems improve efficiency by allowing manure to be spread when runoff risk is low and crops can use the nutrients, while also making manure handling simpler and cleaner. Natural stream buffers of grasses, shrubs, and trees provide wildlife cover, cool water, stabilize banks, and filter sediment and nutrients in runoff. Stream bank stabilization addresses sediment entering local waters from eroding banks, including rock protection at the public boat access in Terrytown and other rock or concrete protections visible around the county. Forestry is also one of Bradford County’s most prized natural resources, with 50% of the land forested, most of it privately owned, and Pennsylvania a world leader in hardwood timber production and sales including maple, ash, cherry, and oak. The Susquehanna River travels 447 miles, drains 13 million acres from Otsego Lake near Cooperstown, New York, to Havre de Grace, Maryland, where it enters the Chesapeake Bay, provides 50% of the bay’s fresh water at about 20 million gallons per minute, and drains every field, forest, street, and backyard in Bradford County; the health of the Chesapeake Bay depends on each resident, developer, and land manager in the watershed.