Local News - October 2003

School students visit apple farm

First-grade farmers

By SARAH GRANO, Staff Writer

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For many students coming to Davis and Son Orchard Thursday, this was the first time they had seen where apples really come from.

“It’s important for them to learn about farms, whether it be a cow farm or an apple farm,” said Alan Davis, an apple farmer and co-owner of the orchard.

“It’s important for them to find out where fruit and vegetables and milk and other produce are coming from, because a lot of kids think you get it from the grocery store, and they have no idea where it’s actually coming from.”

Students from all over Lincoln County are visiting Davis and Son Orchard in west Lincoln County during September and October.

They get to drink apple cider, ride behind a tractor and pick their own apples off the trees.

“We do it for the kids. We don’t make anything at it really,” said Gary Davis, Alan’s father and co-owner.

“They knock off a lot of apples, and then they get a three or four dollar bag of apples. We give them a coloring book and spend a lot of time with them, and we charge them $4. You can see we don’t do it for the money.”

But the students see more than an just an apple orchard. They pass by yellow sunflower fields and orange pumpkin patches on their tractor driven tour.

They are also taught a lesson on how apple farms work.

“Anything to do with an apple I try to talk to them about,” Alan Davis said.

“We talk about it from the seed to the full-grown tree bearing fruit. We cover it all.”

The first-grade students from Catawba Springs Elementary who visited the farm on Thursday already knew a lot about apples.

“We always study apples in September,” said Sue Zimtbaum, a first-grade teacher at the school.

“They’re important to our county. We grow a lot of apples in Lincoln, and we have an apple festival.”

The first-grade students learned how way an apple tree changes with the seasons and the also the story of Johnny Appleseed.

“He used to be real,” said Forrest Baker, a first-grade student. “He planted apple trees.”

Visiting the apple farm can be an emotional time for some students, especially if they come with loose teeth.

“One little girl was standing there crying and looking in the grass, and she was saying ‘The tooth fairy won’t come,’” said Gary Davis. “She bit an apple and her tooth had slipped out.”

He reached into his pocket to give the girl some money and say the tooth fairy had left it, but just then she found her tooth in the grass, he said.

“After they found that little, bitty baby tooth lying in that grass, we got back on the trailer and were ready to go when a little boy bit an apple and his tooth flew out,” he said.

That tooth was also found, but it made for an event filled day.

“It was two at one stop. So, we’re into dentistry too,” Gary Davis said.

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Staff Writer Sarah Grano can be reached at 704-735-3031 or sgrano@ltnews.com

© 2001 Lincoln Times-News  

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