“Potato Recess” in Aroostook County, Maine
In Maine’s Aroostook County, schools close for potato recess as students help out with the potato harvest.
By Glenna Johnson Smith|Sep 08 2021|
Children picking potatoes on a large farm near Caribou, Maine.
Credit: Library of Congress - Prints & Photographs Division - Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives
Children picking potatoes on a large farm near Caribou, Maine.
Credit: Library of Congress – Prints & Photographs Division – Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White NegativesCredit: Library of Congress - Prints & Photographs Division - Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives In Maine’s Aroostook County, schools close for “potato recess” — also known as harvest break — as students help out with the potato harvest. “Oh boy, no school for three weeks — maybe four if we get rain!” The Smith boys get up by 5:00 A.M. and eat a breakfast of fruit, hot cereal, hot biscuits, and bacon and eggs. They dress in layers of long underwear, shirts, sweaters, and padded pants so they can shed garments as the day gets warmer. Dinner kettles filled with everything a sleepy mother can find, they ride to the field at just daybreak, with the land fog so thick that the bright colors of the nearby woods are muted. The air smells of potato rust, burned tops, and damp earth. The young pickers find their baskets, set their barrels at regular intervals, and groan as the digger man uncovers the potatoes muddy from last night’s rain. Their brown cotton work gloves will be wet and cold in a few minutes, their sneakers will be soggy, and their baskets will be heavy with mud. They pick standing up as long as backs and legs will hold out; then they get down on knees, still tender from yesterday’s rock bruises. Just when they are eight rows behind and despair of ever making it through the day, the sun comes out and the digger breaks down. While the farmer drives to town for parts, pickers race their friends to see who will get a section picked up first. The farmer’s wife drives up with hot sugared donuts and pots of cocoa. In late afternoon they are tired of tasting gritty potato dust and wiping it from their eyes and so lame and sore that they want to leave, but can’t because their friends would call them quitters. At last the digger man stops and they go home to supper. They eat so much steak that mothers wonder if the contents of the big freezer will last the winter. They play basketball in the barn for an hour after their chores are done, but they are in bed by 8:30. The next morning dawns so frosty that digging can’t start until the sun has warmed the ground. The pickers gather dry tops and broken barrels and build a fire for keeping warm — and for roasting potatoes. They are always hungry in the field. The Smith boys are a part of a big fraternity of Aroostook students who still exchange stories of potato picking, who understand and respect their potato farm heritage. Despite the bruised knees and chilly mornings, harvest recess has always taught kids a sense of identity and pride in “The County.” Should this tradition ever end, I can think of nothing to replace it.
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Boy do I remember those days as a kid and so does my back ! My mom used to pick 100 or more barrels a day… We worked for a farmer that was a die hard Red Sox fan that wouldn’t miss a game…He would stop the digger at high noon on Sundays and tell us to pick up what ever was left in the fields and see ya early Monday morn’ ! Great days indeed…
I remember those cold mornings. We all picked potatoes and learned the most valuable lesson. How to work.
I wish the kids now could see what a great thing it is to work. The gratification you get when that farmer hands you your pay.That feeling can’t be replaced. I always felt so excited and such pride that I earned my own money. Those were some great times.
I remember picking season well. We waited all year for the chance to earn a little money and then dreaded the 3 weeks of work to get it. But, every Friday night was special. Stores had sales, everyone was out. A real feeling of community that is lost to the history books now.
I help pick potatoes when I was little bitty.then walnut when I was about 8 years old, then in later years I worked in the potatoe sheds in Oregon.
Your story about potato picking in Aroostook County was so vividly written I felt transported back to the spud fields of my youth. Mud caked gloves and knees. Accidentally kneeling on an occasional rotten potato (they stink!). Inadvertently filling up a barrel in the wrong row which would then have to be moved out of the potato truck’s path…while full of potatoes. The ride home, achy and dirty, in the back of a covered pickup truck with an empty lunch pail.
I am sad for the youth of today who will not learn such valuable life lessons earned by honest hard work in the great outdoors.
The thrill of the digger breaking down (not often enough) brought welcome moments of joy, being in the fresh Maine air under bright blue skies and glorying in the warm autumn afternoons.
And the paycheck at the end of the week was the best!!
Girls pick potatoes also! I lived in Island Falls, Maine in the 1960’s. Picked potatoes in the fall when I was in the 3rd and 4th grades. I still have a potato basket today, but I use it here around the house. I earned $.25 per BARREL! and I marveled at the adults who could pick 100 barrels a day. I was so proud to receive a paycheck at the end of the week just like the grown ups!!! It was a different world and $.25 went a lot further then.
I remember all of that except the part of the big breakfast. Must of been nice. I had a bowl of cereal, no time for the hot meal. I was 7 the first time I went to a potato field to help my mother working for an uncle. At 16 I was on a harvester, no picnic there either. That’s how we bought our winter clothes every year at $.40/barrel. What the kids today are missing!!!!
And this is how we Harvested by Hand in THE COUNTY. Fort Fairfield in the early 80’s.
http://youtu.be/h58aHD-GpF4
LOVE THIS! Thank you for sharing this video with us!
It was 5 a.m. mother would bundle up us kids and off to the Aroostook County fields to pick potatoes. If you picked a 100 barrels a day, it would net you $18. Pick or there would be no clothes for school. Potatoe picking was our only means of purchasing new clothing. I started picking when I was 5 yrs old. It was dam hard work.
I was a potatoe picker starting in 1969 in Fort Fairfield Maine. Got picked up in a potatoe farmers pick up truck with cover, me and my 2 older sisters, we rode in the bed of the truck with other pickers to the fields before daylight. I’m remembering 10 cents a barrell. Once I reached 16 was old enough to work on a Harvester separating rocks from potatoes before they were boomed into the huge dump type truck.Was a lot of work but looked forward to it every year so we could buy our school clothes. I’ll never forget the beautyfull fall colors and the smell of the fields! Wish every kid could experience this as their first job ????
In Central Michigan in the early 1960’s we called this ‘Potato Vacation.’ But, it was the same excitement–no school! My family grew potatoes and depended on the students to help with the harvest. The classes would organize these activities as a fund raiser for the Senior Trip. The rate was 7-cents a bushel, later raised to 10-cents! These many years later I still think of these times fondly, the earthy aromas of the soil and the potatoes, and the camaraderie of the classmates. As others have commented, students today are missing something by not having these kinds of experiences.
In my first post, I forgot to comment on the potatoes in the photo in the baskets. They appear to have sprouts and are ‘B’ size. These would be more appropriate as seed potatoes (often cut in half before planting) or potatoes that have been stored in darkness (the only way to really keep potatoes, otherwise they become ‘light burnt’ with a light green tint or eventually ‘sunburned’ or dark green). The sprouts are white because of no light. Smaller potatoes are now a ‘thing’ in restaurants and in produce departments at the grocery, but not with sprouts!
In the South, we used to have kids getting out of school to pick cotton. That’s one reason why our schools started before Labor Day. The cotton picking by hand had gone by the wayside by the time I was born 63 years ago, but my mom had picked cotton as a child. I love hearing these stories by you Mainers of potato harvesting. It’s an important part of your history and culture.
Do they still use this method? Is there still a potato recess?
I’m so fortunate to have had the opportunity to live the dream of Harvest Recess. In my one day of picking, at age 11, they were paying $0.25 a barrel. That was up $0.10 from the previous year. You could have stuffed three or four of me in a barrel. I made $12.50 that day. I saw someone pull a knife because someone tagged their barrel as theirs. In the fields a life is only worth a quarter. By the end of the day my picking area was limited to the space just in front of me. If you can’t keep up you get pushed out. A one day memory that will never be forgotten. God bless our farmers. Thanks for sharing.
reading the article and the comments made me want to cry. Children in the suburbs are not raised this way, and what a shame. Imagine working in the fields all day cold and hungry, and happy to earn money for your winter clothes! I love it…
Just read an article yesterday Bout a group of unruly teens that parents sent to “boot camp” (a ranch/farm) in an effort to straighten them out before they get into serious trouble. The kids are now suing the camp,because they were made to work and punished by reduced meals (they a,ways got somehting to eat but not the same food as the other kids who didnt act up got) when they acted up. They complained about having to work, so no they are Suing. I remember as a child eing too exhausted some evenings to eat during harvest or wood gathering season. There was always so much to do on the farm, that we didn’t have time to get into serious trouble. TV at that time was a luxury, not a daily babysitter. We grew up being social with neighbors who also worked hard, as we all pitched in to help others when needed. We didn’t sit in a living room together texting the person next sitting a foot away from us. Much different times today. Kids suing because they had to work for a week or 2? Glad I grew up in the generation that I did.
Went to Ft Fairfield. I was about 7 yrs old. My brother was 6. They let him go out to pick but a girl wasn’t allowed. Gender war, even then. It looked like fun, but surely wasn’t if one did it for the season.
I don’t know why your magazine is putting this story, written several years ago by Glenna Smith, out as a current picture. First – Glenna died this year and you have a Stember 2020 date after her name. This picture certainly did not come from Aroostook County. Those are baskets never seen in Aroostook. After a day and a half, those baskets would fall apart. And fall potatoes do not have roots coming out of them. Your editors have put forth an entire fake picture. Where are your ethics?
Hi Elizabeth. Thank you for your comment. We began putting issues of Yankee online in 2007, but sometimes there’s a story from the archives that we enjoy so much we’ve added it to NewEngand.com so that we may continue to share it. You’ll see at the very top of this post it says “Excerpt from ‘The Lessons of the Harvest,”’ Yankee Magazine, September 1990” to let readers know when the feature first appeared in print. Unfortunately, the original did not include a photo that we could use, so we had to do our best with what was available online. We’ll try to find a better photo for future promotion.
I went to high school in the county and I learned about potato pick and then I preferred the harvesture to the family event of picking the red potatoes oh the red potatoes…but if anybody reading this article and we’re and lives in the county could get a hold of me I have a niece and a nephew who are suburban City dwelling children who are in desperate need to learn how to work hard I would love to apply for the family red potato picking in the fall with the kids but I live in Ohio now and I don’t know any Farmers anymore if anyone can find any farmers and get in touch with me I would be most happy.
I grew up on a potato farm. Girls and boys both grew up picking . I look back on the time as a social time and managed to have fun during the pickin season!
I grew up on a potato farm in Fort Fairfield in the late 50’s and early 60’s so this article brought back many memories of the “harvest”!
Whole families picked, mom, dad, boys, and girls!
Red potatoes were rare but a nice change from the usual round white Katahdin or Russet.
Empty barrels were a great place to crawl into to get out of the rain!!
Snow on the last day of the harvest was very demoralizing!
Pay day was Saturday so Woolworth’s was popular that evening.
It was great to be about thirteen and old enough to drive truck instead of picking!
Different crews each year was entertaining, from local families to French families from northern Maine to Quebecois hockey players who drank beer all day to Air Force families from Loring AFB.
As a kid, it was a fun time but I am sure my father’s perspective was totally different.
I still have the $90 checks he gave me for six days of driving truck and told me “don’t cash it” !!
Whole fa
One comment by Carol K (9/17/2018) regarding picking cotton in the south. A famous country song by Roy Clark “I never Picked cotton”
“Like my mother did, my brother did, and my sister died young………”
Been told by some residents in Maine in that area, if you want potatoes, pick them off the road sides. I’d rather have a Maine potato than Idaho.