Backwoods Blog

POTATO HARVEST

Backwoods Blog;

in the woods and on the road…

If you ask anyone in our area over the age of fifty about their memories of potato harvest, you are apt to get a lengthy and nostalgic recollection. Before the advent of mechanized potato harvesters (which required fewer workers) and the decline of small family farms, it felt as if the entire community was involved in order to get the crop out of the ground. Age did not matter. Even young children with plastic buckets would be in the field pickin’ taters. I remember how busy the little downtown store would be first thing in the morning with everyone picking up something for their lunch box, a new pair of gloves or a pack of cigarettes if they were old enough to smoke. The store was also a place someone could cash their paycheck or find out who was looking for farm laborers that day. Like many others who have grown up in northern Maine, picking potatoes was my first paying job. Of course the first thing I learned is that you don’t get paid by the hour, you get paid by how many potatoes you pick. In 1968 (if my memory is accurate), the going price was 28 cents per barrel. Each picker was assigned a number and given a stack of tickets with your number on it. When you filled your barrel, you placed your ticket on the barrel and the tickets were counted each night and credited to your record. There were several factors that could affect your daily barrel count, such as how long your section was or how large the potatoes were, but the primary factor was how hard and how steady you worked. You could spend the entire day in the potato field, but if you goofed off or spent too much time throwing potatoes instead of picking potatoes, you wouldn’t have much to show for it at the end of the day. Any way you look at it, one barrel of potatoes represents one barrel of hard work, and if nothing else, it helped build a strong work ethic. Even as the farming methods and equipment have changed over the years the “potato culture” of our area continues to remain rooted in the deep soil of its people and remembered stories. 

In the woods,

Dave

September 28, 2022