82-Lancastar Farming, Saturday, November 23,1985
Holiday season mirks busy time hr Musser Farms
BY JOYCE BUPP
Staff Correspondent
MANCHESTER - The neat sign
announcing the entrance to Musser
Farms might catch a first-time
visitor by surprise. Located in a
row of neat, brick ranch-style
homes on the edge of Manchester
borough, the smoothly-paved lane
could almost be just another urban
driveway leading off the road.
Although the northern York
County town reaches nearly to its
doorstep, Musser Farms leaves no
doubt that it is a hard working
agricultural operation. Fattening
pigs and a feed let of steers are
busy eating in adjoining bar
nyards, ducks with downy yellow
babies waddle toward safety, a
combine waits near the sprawling
barn, and the distant chatter of
chickens and turkey flocks soon
implant the impression that this
busy operation is also a diversified
one.
While life at Musser Farms is work when needed. He and Anna
seldom slow, the fall holiday live in a new home where town and
season stirs this farm’s activities farm meet, and both are part of the
to a harried peak. For Paul and family poultry processing crew.
Helen Musser do what few farm Many of their earlier neighbors
families attempt any longer—they had tended turkey flocks; and in
process and retail fresh-dressed 1938, Chris put in two hundred of
poultry at their on-farm processing the big birds to help boost what
and paipg facility. today’s lenders label ‘ ‘cash flow. ’ ’
From October through the first The turkeys were marketed at the
of the year, the Mussers and a family’s Central Market stand,
part-time crew of relatives, along with a variety of other farm
neighbors and friends process products,
some 1,500 turkeys, 250 ducks, 300 “ w e didn’t have plastic bags for
capons and 250 fryers. The wrapping the processed turkeys,
wmesfead
tA/etes
From pen to pan, the personal touch keeps customers coming back for plump
turkeys like these in the Musser Farm pens.
Mussers' fresh-dressed poultry products
schedule they keep is a tight one,
with birds processed shortly before
pickup each week for customers
who call or stop by with their or
ders.
Advertising is minimal, just a
small classified run seasonally in
local papers.
New customers are generated by
the most successful form of ad
vertising, word-of-mouth from
satisfied, loyal buyers of the
Mussers’ products.
poultry has long been a standby
commodity on the Musser family
farm. Chris and Anna Musser,
Paul’s parents, kept the standard
flock of chickens, along with a
dairy herd and general livestock,
when they began operating his
home farm in the 1930’5.
“We started with four cows, four
mules, fifty chickens and a couple
of hogs,” says Chris Musser. At
age ninety, Chris still works on the
•farm, including doing some field
or anything like that,” he recalls.
“And, there were no flats for eggs;
you just packed them in paper
bags when you sold them.”
In addition to their own diver
sified farm, the Mussers cropped
extra land around the neigborhood,
so there were always plenty of
chores for the couple and their
seven children. Chris was long
recognized as one of the area’s
more progressive farmers and in
1938 purchased the first combine in
York County, a McCormick-
Deering pull type.
Paul is the only one of the
Musser children to full-time farm
as a career. He and Helen, who
grew up on her Gerber family’s
farm near Dover, married in 1953.
Except for two years he served in
the military, most on an Alaskan
Army base, Paul has conitnued the
family tradition of farm operation
diversity.
Dairying ceased to exist “when
tanks came in,” as Chris Musser
puts it. And Helen, not brought up
in a market-tending family, was
reluctant to continue the hectic
market schedule. Instead, she and
Paul chose to take the gamble on
retailing the farm’s poultry
products from their front door.
After several years of processing
birds through a sort of make-do
facility, Paul and Helen in 1960
invested in the on-farm
slaughterhouse. The roomy
building features walk-in coolers, a
retailing area and plenty of space
for poultry processing by the
cheerful, joking crew which
assembles every Thursday, Oc
tober through December. A state
approved operation, the farm’s
processing area is regularly in
spected by the Pennsylvania
Department of Agriculture.
“If we didn’t have a lot of good
in-laws and friends, it just wouldn’t
all get done,” says Helen of the
fresh-dressed poultry business.
Some weeks, just prior to
Thanksgiving and Christmas, as
many as 300 turkeys are readied
for holiday feasts.
part-time
of turkey orders.
pei jes the phrase '9O years
young,” fills in wherever needed on the family farm, from
sharpening knives to driving tractor.
Year-round customers stop by on
a regular basis for supplies of eggs
from the flock of 1,300 Leghorn
laying hens. Custom slaughtering
is still another sideline to keep the
processing facility busy during the
winter months, after turkey season
wanes.
Musser Farms is now becoming
known for a more unusual poultry
product, smoked turkeys. What
began as an experiment is now a
popular speciality item, with about
350 turkeys smoked each holiday
season.
“We had a lady who was visiting
in the area from Tennessee come
in one day some years ago, and
ask for a smoked turkey,” related
Paul. “So we did some ex
perimenting with preparing them
like hams. The first ones were a
little salty, until we got the
technique down.”
To smoke a turkey, he puts a
handful of commercial sugar-cure
product in the cavity of the dressed
bird. Extra heavy toms get an
additional light rubbing of the
curing product on the breast meat.
Prepared birds are kept packed in
ice for a curing period of about one
week. Light smoking, about six or
seven hours, with green apple
An attractive farm sign directs customers to the almost
urban entrance to Musser Farms' retailing market.
ipares
wood turns the finished product a
light chestnut color with the
distinctive, ham-like flavor.
“They’ll keep for up to a year in
the freezer,” says Paul of the
smoked product.
Crop production includes two
hundred acres of com, plus
another 100 in oats, wheat and
barley. Some goes for feed for the
75 fattening hogs and 60 steers, and
for the laying flock. Turkeys,
though, get commerically
prepared feeds, since their
nutrition requirements are
“touchy.”
Another eight acres is planted in
sweet corn, a favorite commodity
of the urban neighborhood nearby.
Silver Queen is the preferred
variety, with irrigation turned on
the crop as needed via the
Musser’s own unique pumping
system: a 1946 Dodge fire engine.
This season, Paul added a
somewhat different crop, a 40-acre
planting of popcorn. Since the
popcorn matured fairly early,
Musser was able to get in some
early season harvesting, with the
truckloads of the favorite snack
item marketed to Heist Seed
Company at Mt. Joy.
(Turn to Page B 4)