The Changing Face of Farm Labor

But Jarvis said he also knows that that dream is increasingly out of reach -- and not just for newcomers. His family has assumed a huge debt -- he won't say how much -- to modernize its farm and stay competitive in an unforgiving business. Each year, more farms vanish in suburban sprawl.

"He'd be better off to save his money and go back to Mexico," Jarvis said, a thought he has never repeated to Mendoza. "Why burst a guy's bubble?"

The two men split up. Nearby, a Latino crew worked in the milk parlor. Their uniforms were flecked with manure. Droplets of milk clung to their faces.

Teabow Farms, about five miles north of Frederick, has a herd of 1,820 animals, of which 950 must be milked daily. There are 18 hired hands. Ten are Latino, most of whom do the milking in shifts three times a day. Some have experience in farming, but most do not. The workers receive $7 an hour to start and receive free housing in two mobile homes on the farm. They do not have health benefits. Many come from the same town in Mexico or El Salvador; workers often recruit their relatives.

Jimmy Stup, whose father bought the farm 40 years ago, said there used to be no shortage of high school students asking if they could help bale hay. Now, even farmers' children look elsewhere for work. After all, Stup wondered, who would prefer strenuous labor at a little more than minimum wage in summer's heat and winter's cold when better-paying office jobs with air conditioning are available?

"It used to be there'd be five, six or seven coming around. This year, we've had one so far," Stup said.

One of the youngsters who came around years ago was Jarvis. At first, he just watched his father, Larry Jarvis Sr., a farmhand with the Stups for 35 years. When Larry Jr. turned 13, he began working summers for the Stups, collecting $1.85 an hour to bale hay or milk cows.

Over the years, he got to know Melissa Stup, Jimmy's sister. They laid eyes on each other when he was about 8, and it was not love at first sight. "I just remember she was in a wagon coming up to the house and she stuck her tongue out at me," he said.

By high school, they were dating. Jarvis enlisted in the Army, and the couple married. Both returned to the farm after Jarvis left the military in 1990. After taking a course on working with Latinos, they went on to oversee a Spanish-speaking staff that has grown through the years.

"You cannot find white people who want do to manual labor. It's hours and pay," Jarvis said.

Stanley Fultz, the University of Maryland's extension agent in Frederick County, said the trend began about 10 years ago on the state's biggest farms. Now, even the smaller farms, with 200 cows, employ immigrants full time, he said. The extension held a "Spanish for Dairymen" seminar last year, a first for the county.

The language barrier poses problems, Jarvis said. Cows have gone lame that otherwise would have been saved if the farmhands had been able to convey warning signs in English, and the Jarvises feel the limits of their Spanish.