Page 2-Com Talk, Lancaster Farming, Saturday, January 24,1998
McPhersons Cultivate A-Maize-Ing Entertainment
(Continued from Page 1)
enlighten them as well.
Gretchen spent four months
last winter developing and de
signing the circular maze, do
ing library research for authen
tication of her ideas. Three
story lines were planned as part
of the maze, from the Mayan
civilization’s history of com
cultivation, then moving into
the story of bow fruit is grown,
and ending with a history of
Maple Lawn’s 50 years of agri
culture production.
Stay on the paths and don’t
cut through the ribboned sides
of the 8.000-plus feet of hand
groomed trails.
Don’t cheat, or another
group might hit you with their
“flag.”
Don’t hurt the com!
So, off they would go, small
groups of no more than a half
dozen, adults accompanying
children and reminding diem
of the rules spelled out careful
ly by Hugh McPherson and his
employee team on hand for
several weekends last fall to
oversee the $6 per person
maize-maze challenge. Each
group was given a small,
brightly colored flag with a
long pole, which could be held
up in “surrender” if the group
caved in and needed rescued
from the intricate, criss-cross
ing conglomeration of paths
through the six-foot tall com.
“They were absolutely
great,” praised Hugh of the up
to 10 employees, mostly in
their early 20s, who made up
the maze team, helping with
everything from first layout to
welcoming the last customers.
“And they were excited about
it.”
Getting the com tall enough
in one of the area’s worst
drought summers was just one
of the challenges tackled by
McPherson and his maze crea
tkm team.
The design developed by
artist Gretchen had to be laid
out. block by graph-paper
Mock; when the com was a few
inches tall. Maze-teammates
spent nearly a month with hoes
in their hands, hoeing out com
plants where the 8,000 feet of
paths through two acres were
plotted. Those paths were later
tilled and raked smooth for
easier walking.
During the hottest week of
summer, the team constructed
an 8-fopt-high, 40-foot-long,
self-supporting woodent bridge
inside the maze; it was a win
ner with players because they
could get a topside view of the
layout. A central fountain,
around which the entire maze
revolved (since all agriculture
revolves around and is depend
ent on water), was designed
and constructed with farm
handy materials such as field
stone, black plastic sheeting,
and a circulating pump.
Then, when the rains simply
refused to come, the McPher
sons ultimately made a choice
to irrigate the plot from their
four-acre pond, so that the com
would reach adequate height
for maze use. It was an added
expense for what was proving
to be an already-then costly
field of com.
“This is fun.”
“This is hard.”
“I got too hot.”
“Is this aim
com?”
Some visitors came back
twice, or more, during Maize
Quest’s season, which ran
Thursday through Sundays,
Aug. 2 through Nov. 1. Some
came to experience the night
maze, made extra difficult by
flashlight-navigation through
the intricate, wandering pat
tern, then returned to see if it
was any easier by sunshine and
daylight.
About 80 percent of the par
ticipants, McPherson esti
mated, took time to read at
least some of the dozens of
With their “help us” flag in hand, a laughing team departs to see If they can
keep from getting lost in the maze of maize.
signs and pieces of historic and
educational materials about
agriculture that were posted
along the four-season-progres
sion of the maze. Each season
was marked with its own color
of plastic tape strung along the
maze paths to keep visitors on
the paths. Most stayed inside
the ribbons. Some didn’t
“Maintenance was a major
effort,” said McPherson. As
the several weekends the maze
was open progressed, the rib
bons became increasingly tat
tered and in need of daily rety-
ing and replacing.
Maize Quest was especially
innovative in that McPherson
developed and designed a
unique stamping system, with
sections of the stamper scat
tered at 17 spots among the
maze. As players reached that
point in the maze, they
stamped that portion of the
map on a mapping paper they
had been given, using a device
which located it at the proper
spot. If they collected a stamp
from each of the 17 points, they
(Turn to Pago 9)