Free Republic

Like most New Jersey farmers, Chester Stephens has to get a little creative in order to make ends meet. A bit too creative, officials say. Now, Stephens is making his way through the appeals process in an unusual case involving the sale of firewood that calls into question the legal definition of "agriculture." On the farm, a familiar sight to motorists along Flanders-Drakes town Road that's been in his family since the late 1700s, Stephens grows mostly corn and hay while raising beef cows and pigs. But one field of the 115-acre farm in Mount Olive is given over to...

Perched on the hillside of Wightman's Farms in Harding, the peach trees' fingerlike branches offer visitors yellow- and white-fleshed gifts. The orchard parcel is home to the Jersey peach -- one of 150 farms, about 8,000 acres in all, that grow the fruit, state officials said. Yesterday, growers, officials and industry experts gathered at Wightman's to sing the praises of the iconic, juicy, summer fruit, whose very name has become slang for something well liked. "New Jersey peaches are 'leaners,'" Department of Agriculture Secretary Charles M. Kuperus said at the farm. "You have to lean over, otherwise the juice falls...

With a sputter and a bang that sent a whiff of diesel fuel wafting through Long Valley, the 1936 John Deere Model B started up as if new. To farmer Harvey Ort, the 70-year-old tractor is better than new. "That's the typical green and yellow color you always found on John Deere tractors, although I don't think it had that shine back then. This is the oldest one we got," he said, admiring the wire-spoke wheels on the two-cylinder tractor. The machine is just one of 23 old-time tractors his family and friends have restored -- an impressive collection of...

Life has been anything but sweet lately for New Jersey's state insect, the honeybee. First, an onslaught of tiny mites began killing bees in massive numbers. Then a few towns banned beekeeping. And beekeepers, a folksy group who raise the insects in backyards and on farms, started to dwindle. "It's very discouraging. They're a very important insect," said Bob Hughes of Hamilton Township, president of the New Jersey Beekeepers Association and owner of Bob's Buzzy Bees. He said the association's membership has fallen dramatically since the 1980s. After years of feeling a sting, New Jersey's beekeepers have something to buzz...

HAMILTON, N.J. - Here, on a 43-acre former dairy farm, John Culley has a vision of what the future of farming might look like in New Jersey. Forget the Garden State. Think crustaceans. In a venture that state agricultural officials say would be the first of its kind in the state, Culley, 31, plans to grow Pacific white shrimp in special indoor tanks and ship them live to specialty markets in Philadelphia and New York. Talk about Jersey Fresh. But Culley, son of a former New York City policeman, will tell you that this is no chimera or passing fad,...

George Dealaman Sr.'s father sold his first pig in 1905, back when Warren Township was a farming community of small villages and dirt roads, when dairy cows dotted the sides of the Watchung Mountains and Route 78 was not even on the map. Nowadays, the township is a wealthy Somerset County suburb. The median household income tops $100,000, an average house sells for about three-quarters of a million dollars and shiny corporate buildings, not cows, dot the landscape along the interstate. Amid all that, more than 100 years after they began raising and butchering pigs there, Dealaman's farm is still...

It was mid-March when a nasally scream of "kee-aah" became a regular feature of the woods behind Bob Szuszkowski's house in Passaic County.The noisy new neighbors were a pair of endangered red-shouldered hawks, Buteo lineatus, of which there are just a few dozen left in New Jersey.A few weeks later, Szuszkowski heard the distinctive whine of a chain saw.----A state regulation to create broad new habitat protections has been on the drawing board for at least six years, through three administrations. It is now bottled up in the administration of acting Gov. Richard Codey, its prospects unclear.---But others fear it...

Picture this: Fluorescent rocks It could be argued that New Jersey is the rock capital of the world - just ask any Springsteen fan.But did you know that the Garden State is also the fluorescent rock capital of the world, long regarded as the "Promised Land" of fluorescent minerals by rock collectors worldwide?Stuart Schneider has written a book about it called "Collecting Fluorescent Minerals." He has an extensive collection of fluorescent rocks, with more than 800 species from around the world, but mostly his rocks are New Jersey-grown.The photography darkroom in his basement has been converted into a mineral room,...

For something so vital to the game of baseball, dirt sure does get a bad rap. Players spend far more time on the dirt in the batter's box, pitcher's mound and infield than they do on grass, but no one ever recalls their first visit to Yankee Stadium with a teary-eyed description of the base paths. And they didn't call the Kevin Costner movie "Dirt of Dreams." Yet to hear a Warren County farmer explain it, making the perfect baseball dirt is an art. Meet Jim Kelsey of Independence Township, the DaVinci of Dirt. He supplies the reddish/orange clay that...

Urban 'farmers' reap benefits of subsidies Even though he lives in a city that has 17,857 people per square mile and actually drives a truck for a living, Donald Jacobs, 65, of Paterson, is a farmer, according to the federal government.Because he is a farmer, Jacobs receives a subsidy each year from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the crops he hires someone to plant on 13 acres he owns in Salem County.President Bush's 2006 budget takes aim at farm subsidies, proposing to cut all crop and dairy payments by 5 percent and limit the total per-farmer payout to $260,000....

A Wantage dairy farmer has become the first Sussex County farmer -- and only the fourth ever from New Jersey -- to be named a winner in the 49th annual National Outstanding Young Farmer competition. He also is the first dairy farmer in New Jersey to win the award, said Lynne Richmond, a spokeswoman with the New Jersey Department of Agriculture. "The recognition means a lot to me. I was just happy to be there," said Jeff VanderGroef, who operates the 337-acre Havendale Farm, one of the largest dairy farms in New Jersey. VanderGroef, 37, received the New Jersey 2005...