By LISA STIFFLER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

The Merritts are one green-thumbed farming couple still in the agricultural business. On their apple farm west of town -- just beyond "Farm to Market Road" -- cows graze under children's slides and swingsets, and hand-painted signs advertise local asparagus.

On the Merritts' hilly acreage, gnarled trunks of apple trees support winding branches decorated with delicate white blossoms. Hives are stationed at the ends of tidy rows of trees, home to busy pollinating bees.

Alan Merritt supports preservation of Skagit farms, rich with soil fertile enough to support nearly 70 different crops. When the community considers how growth in the Skagit Valley should proceed, he says they must remember what a resource this land is.

"Covering up the best farmland in the world," says Merritt, "is not the answer."

Besides the tremendous diversity in crops, the Skagit farms also produce 80 percent of the world's cabbage seeds, as well as spinach and beet seeds.

Merritt says area farmers can survive by growing niche crops such as produce seeds, tulips, red potatoes and berries.

Economic pressures from the world market and local development make the future of agriculture -- and the vision of Burlington as "the farm and garden city" -- uncertain.

Even Burlington Mayor Roger "Gus" Tjeerdsma, who supports protection of farmland, has converted three acres of strawberries on his family farm into a mobile home park.

Says the mayor: "It pays better than strawberries."