Branch,
You might also want to talk to the mapping/GIS people at the county. My county has sat photos accessable via the Internet. The photos show property boundries, owners, assessed values, etc. If the county does not have this information online they very likely have it in their offices. Before they went online, I could go to the county and get a copy of these photos for the price of the paper. I think it was $5 or so for a print out that was close to 36 inches on one side, maybe 24 inches on the other.
Now that I think about it, the county had two types of arial pictures, one was from sat imagery that was available via the Internet, and they had imagery taken from aircraft available at the county office. The aircraft imagery was very detailed. You could see cars and trees knocked down by storms.
On the Pot Plants. My county has had some problems with pot lately. They made a VERY large bust of pot, I forgot the size of the load but it was from a semi from Mexico. Pretty big. Real big mess. The drivers got away. The Sheriff buried a good bit of the pot at the county dump and kept the rest locked in some sort of National Guard truck parked behind the Sheriff's office. Can you see where this is going? /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif Someone, can you believe this, found out about the truck, broke into it and took the pot! Then they noticed that ground was disturbed where they had buried the pot. Yes, it to had walked away! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif Why they did not burn the stuff in the first place is a real good question that needs to be asked. The state investigated and said the mess was stupidity not criminality. I really don't believe that myself....
A Highway Patrol helocopter just discoverd a patch of pot on some property in an area we where looking to buy a house. Drove down the road a couple times. Its an old dirt road with clear cuts all over the place and no houses for miles. Good spot for growing.....
Be careful with the growers. There was a case a few months back in the Northwest where a landowner, his eight year old son, the landowners brother, and son ran into a pot grower. The grower was growing pot on the landowner 's land, something like 400 acres. The landowner and his family were camping out on a far corner of the property when they ran into the grower. The grower, who had his own eight year old boy with him, SHOT the landowner AND the landowner's son. To make a long story short, I think the landowner died( the report was kinda unclear on this), the boy lived, and the grower hung himself in jail. Not a happy story..... /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif
Be careful with these people..........
Hope this helps....