Harvard, Radcliffe Spend Holiday Under Apple Tree

Unwanted, underestimated, and as yet unpaid, Harvard's two-score farmers and as many Radcliffe farmerettes didn't find their apple orchard any Garden of Eden yesterday, but they expressed themselves as "highly satisfied" with the results of the College's most recent venture into the agricultural world.

With well over 200 volunteers signing up to spend their weekend thus fruitfully employed, Andrew E. Rice '43, who was in charge of the episode, found that there was a surplus of workers that threatened to paralyze the available transportation system and inundate the orchard. Only by dint of frantic last-minute telephone calls did he discourage some of the would be patriots and reduce the party to a manageable figure.

The Early Bird

Even with their ranks thus reduced, the workers found that they were too much for the Marlboro farmer. Taking their agricultural duties seriously, they had aroused themselves at dawn to arrive at the farm by 8 o'clock--only to find that their employer was still enjoying his holiday leisure in bed.

Disillusioned by this uninspiring example, they nevertheless repaired to the orchard, where they were promptly set to work gathering apples that had already fallen to the ground. "But we weren't allowed so much as to touch an apple on a tree," they say.

"This part of it really wasn't bad," one of the pickers reported. "Crawling around under apple trees may not seem like fun, but then, there were Radcliffe girls along . . ."

Other features of the expedition which more than redeemed the day, the pickers claim, were the large amount of cider provided by the farmer, the length of the lunch hour, and the minimum of work required the rest of the afternoon.

"In fact," one of them said, "the chief phenomenon of the day was the amount of work the girls managed to do. Maybe it's just a feminine instinct, perhaps or they're just more experienced at picking-up."