The project began in late 1984 with the contact of prospective survey participants. Individuals such as realtors, appraisers and agricultural credit personnel were contacted through a variety of techniques but the primary method was and continues to be by mail. When the first survey was sent in early January 1985, sixty-four people had agreed to participate in a quarterly survey of farmland values. They provided information about values in the states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and Vermont. No participant has been located in Rhode Island. During 1985 and 1986 the survey was designed to ask respondents the average value of farmland in their area. The quarterly surveys were mailed the first of January, April, July and October to elicit farmland values for the first of each of those months. Those results are published in Tauer, and Tauer and Weersink. For 1987 a different approach was utilized. In the fall of 1986 each active respondent was asked to specify and describe a benchmark tract of farm real estate. Each quarter during 1987 the respondent was asked to estimate the market value of that benchmark real estate. Shifting to a benchmark approach allowed tracking changes in those benchmark tracts which should be more indicative of consistent farmland value changes than asking respondents to report on "average" farmland values or the result of recent sales in the area. Again for 1987 the quarterly surveys were mailed the first of January, April, July and October to obtain reports of estimated values for the first of each of those months. Participants were asked to return their response by mail. If no reply had been received in two weeks a follow-up survey was sent. The majority of participants responded every quarter. Attached are the descriptions of the benchmark real estate tracts provided by each participant and their estimated values for each quarter. Respondents are identified by I.D. number only. Identification numbers with letter addenda indicate those respondents provided information for more than one benchmark tract. The January 1987 survey also included questions concerning changes in supply and demand, transactions, and composition of buyers and sellers. The results are reported in Tables 1 through 4, and the survey questions are contained in an Appendix. Similar questions were asked during 1985 and 1986 and those results can be found in Tauer, and Tauer and Weersink.