oooh....more fun with corn!

I had blogged earlier about a corn-field ode to Gerald Ford--
"a strange tribute to a mediocre president".

Then, in the WSJ, Jane Garmey had a nice article on
the Ellsworth Hill (Farm) Maze.

Mr. Cockerline is a local farmer who began designing mazes eight years ago. He got interested when a friend of his described a corn maze he had recently visited. It struck him as an interesting idea, a chance to make a little money, and a good way to get children interested in the land. As a farmer, he knew the correct way to plant a corn field, so he got out pencil and paper and worked on a plan. Next, he came up with the idea of planting different crops within the maze and using them as "destinations" that provided the answers to a series of questions about the crops, the composition of the soil, and the contours of the land. A sheet with a list of 10 questions is given to each child or family group entering the maze. There's nothing dumbed down about these questions, and to answer them requires good observation skills. (For instance, do you know what a drumlin is?)

Mr. Cockerline estimates that to "do" the maze, reach all the crop destinations, and answer the questions takes most people about an hour. And do children ever get lost in the maze? "Well the only time that ever happened," he told me, was when "I had this grandfather come out of the maze and tell me he's lost his grandson. So I went into the maze to find him and soon enough the kid appeared. 'But I'm not lost,' he tells me. 'I just wanted to ditch my grandfather.' "

...In the past 20 years, corn mazes have become big business not only in this country but all across Europe. The generally acknowledged father of the maze movement is Adrian Fisher, an Englishman who for 20 years not only has created mazes but has turned them into a form of popular entertainment. His Web site (www.mazemaker.com) gives a huge list of his clients and provides details on some of his most fanciful designs -- from mazes in the shape of a sheriff's badge and a "royal" crown to the world's first double-decker bridge in a cornfield, set within the design of a Tyrannosaurus rex....

The other big man in the world of mazes is Brett Herbst. His first was done on his own farm, and in 1996 he set up a company to design mazes for clients. He works on computer and his Web site (www.cornfieldmaze.com) reveals that he has designed 1,200 mazes since then....

The overall concept of consumer-focused activities on the farm, which can range from pick-your-own-fruit to hay rides, petting zoos to pumpkin fests, is called agritourism, which, it seems, has become the latest gambit in small-farm survival tactics, and is now taught as a subject in many agricultural colleges. (Mr. Herbst is an agribusiness graduate from Brigham Young University.) Mr. Cockerline, who cheerfully admits he's small potatoes in the maze game -- 4,000 visitors represents good attendance for him -- wants no part of what he considers the blatant commercialization of most mazes and shook his head in horror when I told him that the questions in one farmer's maze were all about finding the names of films and film stars. Forget Johnny Depp and Captain Sparrow. For him, the maze experience is about getting kids to observe the stems of broom corn and having them understand how this plant has played a role in cleaning houses since time immemorial. And drumlins, of course.

By the way, a local icon, Joe Huber was one of the pioneers in the "field" of broadening the farming endeavor to become a consumer experience.

Isn't corn wonderful? It's good to eat; it can be a source for entertainment, a medium for artistic expression, and an inefficient fuel for vehicles! It's fantabulicious!