A farmer’s last stand

No more roadside produce, Christmas display.

By: Paul Sisolak
   MONTGOMERY — The "Picasso of Produce" has been known to be somewhat of a bona fide Picasso when it comes to painting.
   Hanging on the walls inside Don Drake’s Route 518 farmhouse are his renderings of famous locations — the canals of Venice, a trolley running through San Francisco and, locally, the stone Opossum Road bridge. But the farmhouse-turned-art gallery is situated on an equally recognizable township landmark that is readying to close its doors.
   The Don Drake farm, known to many for decades for its Christmas holiday display and vegetable stand that attracts passing motorists on Route 518, will close within a year to make room for a new traffic bypass. Mr. Drake, who owns exactly half the family farm acreage along Route 518, has decided to retire from tending his 65-acre vegetable farm, citing health problems and a declining farming industry. His older brother, John, owns the other half of the acreage, farther east.
   It’s no exaggeration to say Mr. Drake has seen Montgomery undergo revolutionary change.
   "You’d never see a car on the way up, and never see a car on the way back," Mr. Drake, 72, recalled of his prolific farming days in 1940s and 1950s Montgomery.
   "(Farmers) did good during the war," he said. But times were different then, he continued, and as suburban sprawl began to take over the township in recent decades, many farmers packed up and moved out.
   Mr. Drake, though, made the best of the changing situation and, in 1970, set up his legendary vegetable stand, aptly titled the "Country Gentleman," named after a type of white sweet corn.
   The stand brought $400 in profits that year and has increased its sales ever since, convincing Mr. Drake that opening a roadside stand is the best way for struggling farmers to get by.
   "Farmers have no choice," he said. "I think they should go to roadside stands.
   "You make money from them because you set your own price."
   He applauded the township’s recent creation of an agricultural advisory committee, but believes it comes too late. He emphasized that modern-day farmers can’t support themselves through farming alone. Those who have hung on are depending on their produce stands, he said.
   Still, the impending closure of the successful produce stand — the place he describes where you "very seldom see a worm" — is a positive thing, Mr. Drake said.
   "It’d be better for the town," he said, referring to the purchase of his land by neighboring Bloomberg L.P. "It makes jobs. But it makes a lot of traffic, too."
   When the farm closes, he said, Bloomberg will construct portions of a highway bypass that will reduce traffic congestion by providing cars with a link between Routes 518 and 206. The bypass will wrap around his brother John’s farm and its huge grain silos.
   Bloomberg’s original purchase offer, which came in 2000, proposed the construction of a new housing development, Mr. Drake said. But he turned the offer down — partially because he was still working his crops, but also in part because of his support of farmland preservation over more housing.
   After becoming ill, his technical retirement from farming arrived two years ago. The tilling of the fields is now entrusted to his nephew.
   And Montgomery residents can rest assured the renowned Christmas display will continue for one more holiday season in the hands of Mr. Drake’s brother-in-law, Walter Scott. It has drawn attention from airplanes flying overhead to Martha Stewart, who featured it on her show last winter.
   The Bloomberg deal is not dissuading Mr. Drake’s brother, John, who said he has no intentions of shutting down his farm.
   Don Drake said he intends to remain in New Jersey after he closes on the sale, and will hold fast to his roots in farming with plans for a big garden.
   "I’m now going to mow my own lawn," he noted.
   Although he looks at the recently stagnating farming business with a bit of regret, he again recalled the benefits of his profession in decades past.
   "A farmer could have fed himself," he said. "You didn’t need money then."
   Still, with the price he had to pay to have his paintings framed — $150 apiece — Mr. Drake wonders if a career in art supplies would have been a more feasible option.
   "I’m in the wrong business," he laughed.