
A Hunger for Tomatoes - samsolomon
https://bittersoutherner.com/a-hunger-for-tomatoes-shane-mitchell
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GlenTheMachine
I've never grown tomatoes commercially, but growing up on a farm my dad didn't
believe in allowances and therefore always found us work to make money. There
were few jobs because the area was so rural, so most of his ideas revolved
around growing and selling various crops.

I earned the money for my Commodore 64 by raising and selling sweet corn one
summer. Growing sweet corn for market is its own special kind of hell. The
silk of the individual ears have to be sprayed with insecticidal oil several
times during the growing season to prevent corn worms from getting inside the
ears, making them unsalable. This is accomplished with a backpack sprayer,
basically a ten-gallon water tank you carry like a backpack, with a spray head
and a pump handle to pressurize it. Corn fields at full growth are murder to
walk through. Corn ears are abrasive at best, and if you catch them right they
cut like a serrated razor. And there's always morning glory climbing the
stalks, meaning you have to push through; it's what I imagine walking through
rain forest must be like. The corn is high enough that there's no wind, and
the stalks actively produce humidity. Then there are the ticks and chiggers.

All in all, that was the hardest job I've ever done. And at the end of the
summer I cleared $200. Which was enough for the C64, but it worked out to be
like 25 to 50 cents an hour.

I never looked down at physical laborers after that, and farm workers least of
all. And I also went to college, and the fact that this was a privilege that
most of the kids I grew up with didn't have was not lost on me.

~~~
stevenwoo
How do those industrial sized farms do the spraying for corn worms - is that
crop dusters?

Your story reminded me of the recent reporting on the attempt to replace
Mexican migrant farm workers with American high school kids in the 1960's.
[https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/07/31/634442195/wh...](https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/07/31/634442195/when-
the-u-s-government-tried-to-replace-migrant-farmworkers-with-high-schoolers)

~~~
GlenTheMachine
The industrial guys are likely using some sort of broad pesticide, so they
don’t have to specifically target the silk on each ear. There are special
tractors with really high clearance and sprayer arms that are often used.

[https://goo.gl/images/9ozRxC](https://goo.gl/images/9ozRxC)

