Crop Dusting

Where I formerly lived in Pennsylvania, most of the fields were fairly small because of the mountains and forests. The fields were wedged between hills and trees and aerial spraying or crop dusting as it is sometimes called, was not a common farming practice.

As time went by, farming the small fields became less profitable and many farms were sold to developers. The developers broke the farms into one, two or three acre lots. The lots were sold to people from the cities and houses sprang up everywhere like mushrooms. One such farm had fields that ran the length of the valley. One fairly long field ran about a quarter mile down a valley with a road on one side and a steep hill on the other side with a second strip running along the top. The lots were rectangular with all the houses built on top of the hill. That left the long field at the bottom virtually intact with only driveways breaking it up. My husband made a deal with all these new home owner. He agreed to mow and bale the bottom “field.” This worked out well because we were able to sell the hay bales and the home owners were able to get their front yards mowed.

Many times when my husband was working in the fields, I would bring his lunch out to the field and we would enjoy the meal together. One such day, I was driving down the side of field when I heard an airplane overhead. It had started a steep drop down, similar to the way a crop duster drops down over the fields at the edge of a tree line. The problem was the plane’s engine was spitting and sputtering. It appeared the pilot, not seeing my husband on the tractor, was trying to land in the field.

My husband’s concentration was on his machinery. He was unaware of the approaching plane. Suddenly, as the plane got lower and lower, the engine caught and the plane shot up like a crop duster at the end of the field. Instead of making a wide circle and coming back to the field, like a crop duster would, this plane made a hard right turn as the engine started stuttering again. As the plane disappeared over the hill, I caught up to my husband who had noticed what was happening and had moved to the edge of the field.

My husband jumped into the car and with me at the wheel we sped off in the direction of where we saw the plane disappear.

On the other side of the hill we found the the plane sitting in a tiny field almost in the trees. The pilot had managed to coax the plane into a crash landing without sustaining injury and only minor damage to the plane.

The plane was towed a few miles to a larger field where there was an abandoned airfield. The plane was repaired and flown back to its home airport.

Since moving to Nebraska, I have observed many crop dusters dropping down from the sky. The sight of them gives me flashbacks to the day my husband was almost dusted.