Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Bryant
Speaker 1: that makes the stuff you should know. It feels like
Speaker 1: it's been forever since we've been in the studio. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this chair, my chair no longer stinks. They had time
Speaker 1: to air out. And you know I've said it before,
Speaker 1: I'll say it again. If we could roll the first
Speaker 1: three minutes before we actually hit record on this puppy, Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: well gold do you think? I think? What are the
Speaker 1: ones they give for a spoken word? You can get
Speaker 1: a Grammy for that, sure, or if it's like videotaped
Speaker 1: and broadcast on TV, you can conceivably get an Emmy
Speaker 1: for it. We I think we could win every award
Speaker 1: with our three minutes before and after we record, and
Speaker 1: people out there and they're like, oh, I want to
Speaker 1: hear it so bad. To get this, that's it. This
Speaker 1: is what you get and you'll like it for your freness.
Speaker 1: Right all right, by the way, go like us on Facebook,
Speaker 1: call you It would help us out personally, Chuck and
Speaker 1: I would be helped out. If you go on to
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash stuff. You should know our Facebook
Speaker 1: page and like us, like get us to fifty can
Speaker 1: you please get us to the gent And for the
Speaker 1: gentleman who said that it makes him want to unlike
Speaker 1: it because we ask people to like it. Just what's
Speaker 1: going on, buddy, what's going on in your life? So
Speaker 1: it's called marketing. You're ready, Yeah, you're ready. Let's market
Speaker 1: some agri tourism. I have an intro. Let's hear it.
Speaker 1: So back in two thousand and seven, the little newsine
Speaker 1: may have slipped past because it was south of the
Speaker 1: border Florida. Um. A guy named that's usually Mexico. When
Speaker 1: you say that, By the way, again, if we're not
Speaker 1: in Texas, we're in Georgia, So south of the border
Speaker 1: means Florida, Okay. A guy named Ronald Levins Sr. And
Speaker 1: his wife Jequita Evans got some pretty hefty time. Ron
Speaker 1: Evans got thirty years for what amounted to indentured servitude. Right.
Speaker 1: This guy ran some Florida labor camps where people would
Speaker 1: go and like this is where they would stay and
Speaker 1: bunk and eat at night, and then during the day
Speaker 1: they get bus to farms to work right Orange Groves wherever.
Speaker 1: I think lettuce is big there too. Um the that's
Speaker 1: all legal and kosher. They they even actually employed the homeless.
Speaker 1: They would go around to Miami, Baton Rouge, New Orleans.
Speaker 1: I don't think they came to Atlanta, but they went
Speaker 1: to big cities in the southeast and recruited homeless people
Speaker 1: living on the street and said, hey, we can give
Speaker 1: you a job. You know. Yeah. The problem came with
Speaker 1: the indentured servitude part. They had a company store at
Speaker 1: their labor camp and it sold a gallon of wine
Speaker 1: for forty bucks. And you should know right off the
Speaker 1: bat that you can't get a good gallon of wine
Speaker 1: that's all cheap. So they had really inflated prices. Cigarettes
Speaker 1: were through the roof, and the crack cocaine was above
Speaker 1: market value. The stuff they sold at the company's store
Speaker 1: that they eventually got all the guys addicted to gave
Speaker 1: them advances of crack against their paychecks and basically got
Speaker 1: these guys mired in debt to where they were indentured
Speaker 1: servants slaves. He's got the guy finally got busted. He
Speaker 1: was a really smart dude. Yeah, because he was running
Speaker 1: him not just in Florida, but North Carolina. Uh and
Speaker 1: uh possibly South Carolina as well. He's like, I've discovered
Speaker 1: something really really great. So that um is the exact
Speaker 1: opposite of agratourism, and that's your setup. That's pretty good. Uh.
Speaker 1: I thought I didn't see where that was going because
Speaker 1: the whole time I was sinking. All right, that's fine,
Speaker 1: he's paying these people, gets homeless people, put them to work,
Speaker 1: puts them up in a in a bunk. What's what's
Speaker 1: the problem forty gallon of wine? Well, the crack is
Speaker 1: kind of a big problem too. He had all the
Speaker 1: farmers paying him in cash in return for the labor,
Speaker 1: so he could go buy massive amounts of crack. So
Speaker 1: the company's store never ran out of crack from what
Speaker 1: I understand. Well, and they were probably fairly secluded, you know,
Speaker 1: it's probably the only store around. They probably didn't have cars. No,
Speaker 1: they probably depended on that store they did and that crack. Yes, So,
Speaker 1: like I said, that's the opposite of agraa tourism. What
Speaker 1: is the positive the the I guess what is agri tourism. Well,
Speaker 1: it's when you want to attract guests and visitors to
Speaker 1: come to your business, your farm, to either observe or
Speaker 1: actually take part in the business, the family business. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go. Is that good? That's it. That's that was
Speaker 1: agra tourism explained. Like you know, let's just give it
Speaker 1: one example. Say you can go to California and you
Speaker 1: can stay at a winery and instead of just kicking
Speaker 1: back on the porch all day and sampling wine, you
Speaker 1: can go out and you can pick the grapes and
Speaker 1: you can learn how it's done and in the hand
Speaker 1: and uh eat eat the food that's produced there. Maybe
Speaker 1: if it's a farm, that kind of thing. So I
Speaker 1: think sideways, the film was entirely bankrolled by the California
Speaker 1: Agritourism cartel, I think so. I mean, think about it,
Speaker 1: like the whole movie is about an agritourism trip that's
Speaker 1: essentially not even essentially like that is in every way agritourism.
Speaker 1: Like they went from one one winery to another winery.
Speaker 1: They watched the grapes get stomped. Did they even did
Speaker 1: they participate in grape stomping? I don't remember, I don't remember,
Speaker 1: But did you ever see that video on YouTube. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: the woman stomping grapes. Yeah, here in Atlanta. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was Fox five that it happened on. And have you
Speaker 1: seen Keyboard cat Player out d d d Dodo Doo
Speaker 1: ding do. Yeah, it's pretty It's really sad because she
Speaker 1: seems genuinely hurt. But the noise that she makes, it's once,
Speaker 1: you hear it once, it is stuck in your crawl forever. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's grape stompings. So that's a that's a pretty good
Speaker 1: example of agri tourism right and wrong. I think we
Speaker 1: should well, yes, in her case, in her case, but
Speaker 1: Sideways is a good um example. I took that tour,
Speaker 1: did I know? No, No, No, that was northern California.
Speaker 1: We we did the little that Sideways was done in
Speaker 1: southern like Santa Barbara. Oh I thought it was in
Speaker 1: Napa Valley. No, no, it was in It was in
Speaker 1: Napa where it was. Well, then all those places I
Speaker 1: went to that we're in the movie must have been
Speaker 1: wrong in the movie. It was supposed to be Napa.
Speaker 1: Five dollars okay. Actually, actually well, to h the one
Speaker 1: winery with the guy with a big beard, I actually
Speaker 1: hung out with that guy for like an hour of
Speaker 1: drinking wine, the dude from the movie, and like we
Speaker 1: were the only people in there. The sun was setting.
Speaker 1: It was one of those magical moments that sounds touching.
Speaker 1: So chuck, Um, what's the what's the point of agriturism, Well,
Speaker 1: it helps there. Well, it's because farmers are having to
Speaker 1: diversify a little bit in most cases to make dough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I read an exactly. Well, with the advent of the
Speaker 1: factory farm, right, we've got very a very small percentage
Speaker 1: of farms number wise, right, Um, say one factory farm
Speaker 1: equals one farm that's an enormous farm. Uh, in both
Speaker 1: like revenue and you know, acreage production. Um, they represent
Speaker 1: a very small number of the number of farms, but
Speaker 1: just proportionately large, um total of the revenue made and
Speaker 1: of the stuff produced in the US. Right. So that's industrialization, right,
Speaker 1: And one of the one of the other aspects of
Speaker 1: industrial I know where you're going next, but one of
Speaker 1: the other aspects of industrialization is um apparently you have
Speaker 1: to have a gross revenue of fifty grand a year
Speaker 1: from your farm to start to actually be able to
Speaker 1: sustain your family through farming. Seventy in two thousand seven
Speaker 1: seventy five. No, I'm sorry. This year, se of farms
Speaker 1: in the US made less than fifty grand a year.
Speaker 1: So this is one of the reasons why they're saying, well,
Speaker 1: I don't really want to give up farming and become
Speaker 1: a city slicker because I hate city slickers, but I
Speaker 1: like city slickers money. So let's supplement our income and
Speaker 1: start some agritourism. Yeah, yeah, that's a great reason. What's
Speaker 1: the other reason that farmers are being forced to go
Speaker 1: into agritourism. I'm glad you asked globalization because with the
Speaker 1: way shipping is now in communication around the world and
Speaker 1: things move at the speed of light, you're not just
Speaker 1: competing with the farm like in your county or in
Speaker 1: your state. You're competing with like a farm across the
Speaker 1: universe from yourself for the world. In the world. The
Speaker 1: world's fat enough. Don't bling the galaxy into this. You're
Speaker 1: you're in big trouble, moon farmer. We get in intergalactic
Speaker 1: competition moisture farmers. So we've got globalization, industrialization. Those are
Speaker 1: pretty much the two big drivers of agritourism. But you know,
Speaker 1: you can't put it past farm folks to to be
Speaker 1: um well smart and farm smart, and that what they
Speaker 1: call it. I never heard that, but I love that term.
Speaker 1: I thought i'd picked that up from you. Are you sure? No,
Speaker 1: I never have heard that before. Well there's farm smart,
Speaker 1: farm strong. No, No, that's lived strong, farms smarts. So chuck. Um.
Speaker 1: There's a few different ways that this can pan out. Right,
Speaker 1: Let's say you're at the dollar level and you don't
Speaker 1: care about new stuff. You're just fine sewing your old clothes.
Speaker 1: But you want to keep farming. Um, you would you
Speaker 1: would use agritourism as like a supplementary income, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: just add a little like you might do tours things
Speaker 1: like that. And you know I should add that when
Speaker 1: I was a kid. Was it Robert that wrote this,
Speaker 1: Robert Lamb? Yeah, it's an unusually thin article from Robert
Speaker 1: Lamb of stuff to blow your mind. Well, he makes
Speaker 1: a point early on that, um, it provides a connection
Speaker 1: that people has been lost between the stuff we put
Speaker 1: in our body and in the person. Yeah. Because and
Speaker 1: I've read that and it really hit home because when
Speaker 1: I was a kid, and this wasn't in like the
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties, we got our milk from a farm right
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta, and it wasn't weird. Like we drove
Speaker 1: to this farm and they had you pull up to
Speaker 1: the cooler room and there was a guy standing there
Speaker 1: on the porch and he would just ask what you
Speaker 1: need and he'd go in the cooler room and go
Speaker 1: get it for you. And it wasn't like I didn't
Speaker 1: live in I was in a hill billy And it
Speaker 1: wasn't the nineteen twenties. This is like in the eight
Speaker 1: seventies and eighties in in Decabb County, Georgia. Yeah, but now,
Speaker 1: I mean that seems really weird. Or get anything outside
Speaker 1: of the grocery, It's not weird. It's more like token.
Speaker 1: It's like a token experience, right. Yeah. And that that's that's,
Speaker 1: by the way, is direct marketing aggrotourism, where like you
Speaker 1: drive to the farm and like you just pull up
Speaker 1: to a farm stand or something that's down the side
Speaker 1: of the road. Um. But yeah, we were talking about
Speaker 1: what's driving agro tourism from the farmer's point of view,
Speaker 1: but you just touched upon what's driving it from the
Speaker 1: consumers point of view. And yeah, this whole farm to
Speaker 1: table movement huge. Well yeah, and it's having it's it's
Speaker 1: it's the perfect time for aggri tourism because I think
Speaker 1: it was, was it two thousand eight or nine? Very recently, um,
Speaker 1: the world population tipped towards cities the first time ever
Speaker 1: more people lived in cities than in a rural area. Right,
Speaker 1: the sticks, the sticks. So we're we're we're getting further
Speaker 1: and further away from our country roots. Right. People won't
Speaker 1: walk around barefoot anymore, people wear shirts underneath their overalls.
Speaker 1: It's just you know, urban um. So, I guess this
Speaker 1: desire to be able to go back to the farm,
Speaker 1: uh is is definitely part of of why this is
Speaker 1: why consumers are going there right. Well, and Robert makes
Speaker 1: a point which is very valid, which is especially if
Speaker 1: your family, if that was your roots, your ancestry, you
Speaker 1: may not know anything about that, and it might be
Speaker 1: a neat way to get in touch with your your
Speaker 1: ancestry and your roots. Go back. See what it's like
Speaker 1: the milk a cow because great great granddad did that
Speaker 1: for a living. Sure, pretty cool. Yeah, you can feel
Speaker 1: your great great granddad's ghosts looking over your shoulder like
Speaker 1: you're doing it wrong. Right, You got a yank down
Speaker 1: and to the left. I've never a milky cow. I
Speaker 1: don't know how to do it. So you've got supplementary. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's complementary, which is where it's about half and half.
Speaker 1: And a good example of this kind of aggri tourism
Speaker 1: outfit is a pumpkin patch, right, so like they may
Speaker 1: sell half of their pumpkins to you know, a wholesaler,
Speaker 1: and then they may keep half of them for the
Speaker 1: fall tours. And people can walk around and pick their
Speaker 1: own pumpkin and then carve it and have some snotnose
Speaker 1: teenager come and smash it, and some awful band will
Speaker 1: name their band after that act. Jerry just left it
Speaker 1: and she's like mentioned smashing pumpkin, and so that's complimentary.
Speaker 1: And then there's primary. And primary is the one where
Speaker 1: your farm is growing nothing but weeds, right, nothing you
Speaker 1: can sell, and you turn it into an agriturism destination.
Speaker 1: Like you all, almost all of your income is coming
Speaker 1: from the fact that there are people coming to your
Speaker 1: farm growing stuff. Though well you are you have to
Speaker 1: like grow something, but it doesn't necessarily have to be sellable, right,
Speaker 1: as long as people think it looks pretty, then you're fine. Sure.
Speaker 1: Now there's Back in the director of the U C.
Speaker 1: Davis's Small Farms program publicly worried that if ranchers and
Speaker 1: um farmers didn't get in on the Agora tourism action
Speaker 1: soon enough, the market was going to be open wide
Speaker 1: enough for like theme park operators to do this, which
Speaker 1: would be the primary enterprise aspect. And there's a guy
Speaker 1: who's a former Disney exact who actually started a company
Speaker 1: to make mazes that take about two hours to get
Speaker 1: to on farms. Yeah, well, that's that's huge. The corn
Speaker 1: maze in the fall, that's aggri tourism, buddy. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: have you ever done one of those? I haven't. They
Speaker 1: haven't been terrified at the thought of like getting trapped
Speaker 1: in there forever? Really? Yeah? Wow? Mazes? Huh. I don't
Speaker 1: like mazes. I bet the end of the shining is
Speaker 1: pretty harrowing for you. Huh No, because I'm not there,
Speaker 1: but yeah, sure, like my I've got like three mirror neurons.
Speaker 1: If you're Danny, though, then it would have been frightened.
Speaker 1: I would have just laid down and died and they
Speaker 1: come kill me. Dad think a quit. Uh So. Robert
Speaker 1: likens it to eco tourism, which is um, not too
Speaker 1: far off. Whn't you think they both have tourism in
Speaker 1: the name. Well, yeah, And the cool thing about um,
Speaker 1: aggro tourism and eco touris are actually more aggroturism is
Speaker 1: you don't have to necessarily throw a lot of money
Speaker 1: into it as a farmer, because you've got the farm
Speaker 1: you Sometimes you just got to open the gates and
Speaker 1: advertise it, say, come to our apple farm and pick
Speaker 1: some apples. So it's not like you gotta sink a
Speaker 1: lot of money into an enterprise. And um, one of
Speaker 1: the I think one of the rules of thumb, if
Speaker 1: you're a agri tourism farmer and you're actually trying to
Speaker 1: sell some of your stuff too, you want to keep
Speaker 1: the littlest kids like occupied away from your protest because
Speaker 1: apparently they represent a huge portion of shrinkage. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I guess petting zoos are the best way to do it.
Speaker 1: It is because if you've ever wanted to watch a
Speaker 1: small child inadvertently kill a rabbit by petting it too eagerly,
Speaker 1: then agro tourism is right up your alley. That doesn't happen,
Speaker 1: Sure it does. That's awful. Kids and their rough love
Speaker 1: they just don't know. Let's talk about some different types
Speaker 1: of agro tourism checkers. Well, you mentioned the direct market,
Speaker 1: which is like fruit stands, that kind of thing. Um.
Speaker 1: Robert calls this one education and experience, and this is
Speaker 1: more along the lines of like a bed and bright
Speaker 1: like seren By, you know, Sara By, South Atlanta. I saw, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty cool. You know, they have an apprenticeship to
Speaker 1: that lasts from March to November. Yeah, I looked it up.
Speaker 1: Pays eight hundred bucks a week plus housing and utilities,
Speaker 1: and they teach you the ins and outs of organic farming, UM,
Speaker 1: keeping farm records. Like it's it's pretty well organized. It
Speaker 1: sounds like there's actually, while we're on that, there's UM.
Speaker 1: If you go onto the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service
Speaker 1: site and then search sustainable farming internships and apprenticeships, it
Speaker 1: brings them up for the entire country. Yeah. So if
Speaker 1: you're into this kind of thing, if if you want
Speaker 1: to be like an ag culturist rather than an a tourist,
Speaker 1: it's it's out there for you. You know, if I
Speaker 1: was fifteen years younger and single, you would find me
Speaker 1: down at Serenby Living, right, is that right, Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I'd love that really. Yeah, it's gorgeous down there. So
Speaker 1: that's the idea of like the bed and breakfast package
Speaker 1: where they say, hey, stay at our bed and breakfast
Speaker 1: and work a little bit on our farm and learn
Speaker 1: how to turn butter and eat the food that we
Speaker 1: serve you that's straight from the farm from the table. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You saw that one Maverick Farm and and uh Carolina, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that. Throw throw that down. It's in Valley Crucis,
Speaker 1: North Carolina, and it's a bed and breakfast. It's situated
Speaker 1: in a hundred and forty year old, hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: five year old farmhouse right. Uh. And it's a hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty bucks at night for a room. But you
Speaker 1: can work off up to I think bill at seven
Speaker 1: bucks an hour by acting as farm labor. I love
Speaker 1: farm hand. And then you eat with the family in
Speaker 1: their home every night, stuff that they grow. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: they said that you can and it's an option if
Speaker 1: you want to donate a little money back for the meal,
Speaker 1: you can. Well I'm trying to picture you there. You'd
Speaker 1: be like, aw, you're working twenties a good rate. I'll
Speaker 1: just be here on the porch watching you people work.
Speaker 1: I'm paying to watch other people work on a farm. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then the other type is recreation an event agriturism,
Speaker 1: and that's um more like the Big Fall Festival, corn mazes,
Speaker 1: pumpkin picking, hay rides, sheep here in contest did they
Speaker 1: have those awesome yeah pie eating contest. Yeah. Basically, if
Speaker 1: there's an event that you're attending and um, say a
Speaker 1: pageant and it's miss and then insert your own vegetable,
Speaker 1: that's the miss uh squash of Canton or whatever. That
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Another one that was pretty cool that
Speaker 1: um he mentions in here is the U. S Department
Speaker 1: of Agriculture operates one called home Place by the Lakes
Speaker 1: National Recreationary in Tennessee. And they go a step further
Speaker 1: and combine a little like Colonial Williamsburg in with it.
Speaker 1: They'll dress up instead of a Civil War reenactment, they'll
Speaker 1: be dressed up in the old school clothes showing you
Speaker 1: how to churn butter. Imagine like the AMAS should probably
Speaker 1: be like, dude, that's our life. Have you come watch us?
Speaker 1: You read exactly? Um, it's like the opposite of rum Springer. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: that's what we just figured out the key to a tourism.
Speaker 1: It's the opposite of rum Springer. Have have you ever
Speaker 1: seen the alig episode Um where Barat goes to like
Speaker 1: a living history farm in South Carolina. I strongly recommend
Speaker 1: that one. It's hilarious. Uh. There's another one called the
Speaker 1: Conner Prairie Living History Museum, which is sort of what
Speaker 1: you're talking about right there. This one's pretty serious. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This is in Fisher's, Indiana, and there's an outdoor museum
Speaker 1: and you can see how things operated in the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: And then they go a little step further and they
Speaker 1: actually have a program called Follow the North Star which
Speaker 1: allow as you the chance to see what it was
Speaker 1: like to be a slave trying to escape. Yeah, which
Speaker 1: I wonder how they do that. I think they have
Speaker 1: guys and dogs running after you. Really, yeah, tracking you.
Speaker 1: That's what I took from it. Yeah, that's that's tricky.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's living history right there. I don't know
Speaker 1: if I want to do that. Can you see yourself
Speaker 1: running through the woods like hete agritourism. This is horrible, So, Josh.
Speaker 1: One of the ideas behind agriturism is that people will
Speaker 1: be so uh, inspired by their trip, that it will
Speaker 1: form sort of a relationship with the farm and that
Speaker 1: they will want to support that farm even after they
Speaker 1: have left the farm. This appears to be like a
Speaker 1: long term goal of agritourism. It's not just short term.
Speaker 1: It's more like they want to remind the city slickers
Speaker 1: that farms still exist and that the city slickers are
Speaker 1: welcome to come by and empty their wallets there, like
Speaker 1: keep coming back again and again. And actually that works
Speaker 1: because I was raised as an agritourist um going to
Speaker 1: McQueen orchard in Holland, Ohio pick apples, and still to
Speaker 1: this day, like my family when we visit Ohio, we'll
Speaker 1: go to McQueen's. We scheduled it around the time where
Speaker 1: the apples are ripe, amazing, best donuts in the entire world.
Speaker 1: Like I kid you not, Yes, everything is just perfect.
Speaker 1: They're just go go to McQueen apple fritters to be
Speaker 1: apple fritters, apples there, apple cider is just I mean,
Speaker 1: and the apples themselves. You just climb the trees and
Speaker 1: pick them and eat them and you know, take off
Speaker 1: your shirt and it's awesome. Uh So, where I was
Speaker 1: going though with the with the repeat businesses. Um, you've
Speaker 1: heard of the the c s A, the community supported
Speaker 1: agriculture programs. Yeah, and that's when you sign up as
Speaker 1: a collective. While you sign up personally, you form a
Speaker 1: collective as a whole. And um, you basically pay money
Speaker 1: up front to get a box of vegetables like once
Speaker 1: a month. I mean, the programs are different delivered to
Speaker 1: your home or sometimes you go pick them up. And
Speaker 1: the cool thing is, and you should know this because
Speaker 1: some people might not think it's so cool, is you
Speaker 1: don't know what you're gonna get. Yeah, but you get
Speaker 1: a lot of what you don't know what you're gonna get. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: so you gotta be open minded. You gotta be willing
Speaker 1: to experiment with vegetables you may never have cooked with before.
Speaker 1: It's probably a good idea to know how to can
Speaker 1: things because you really get a lot of stuff. This
Speaker 1: is one of the things I've always heard from people
Speaker 1: who have co op subscriptions that like all this scale,
Speaker 1: all this scale. Tennessee Tech has a program. They say
Speaker 1: that they're the first university in the state of Tennessee
Speaker 1: to offer a degree in agriturism because they say this
Speaker 1: is the future, and you're gonna need managers and people
Speaker 1: that know the trends in this business. I think this
Speaker 1: represents the people who are like theme parks are going
Speaker 1: to get into this. You think like let us land
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. No, I wouldn't call it that,
Speaker 1: but possibly. Uh. I got a couple of stats for you. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's successful, right, Well, yeah, I got one for the
Speaker 1: state of Colorado. At least they say that agritourism contributed
Speaker 1: two point two billion dollars to their state's economy and
Speaker 1: that thirteen point two million visitors engaged in one in
Speaker 1: last year in agritourism in Colorado. It's pretty awesome. So
Speaker 1: the one I have is from the two thousand seven
Speaker 1: U s Senses of agriculture three thousand, three hundred fifty
Speaker 1: farms in the US. I have some sort of agritourism
Speaker 1: thing going on, right, and about thirty six hundred of
Speaker 1: those were making grand or more a year from it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this billion number seems really suspecting me. I wonder if
Speaker 1: it's not a million for Colorado. Yeah, because the the
Speaker 1: total for all of the US and two thousand seven
Speaker 1: five sixty six million, I don't know if that was
Speaker 1: gross revenue, because it sounded like your stat was um
Speaker 1: like economic impact. That would include like the gas people
Speaker 1: coming into the state. Yea, you know the hotels that
Speaker 1: they stayed in when they were picking apple. But that's
Speaker 1: what the Colorado State Extension Service said. Well, they're pretty
Speaker 1: well known to be rather liberal with their numbers hippies.
Speaker 1: So let's see what else, Chuck, I don't have much else,
Speaker 1: do you The greatest winery scene of all time? Not
Speaker 1: in Sideways, the British comedy series Absolutely fabulous. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know I didn't watch that show. I knew
Speaker 1: it was supposed to be great, but in that particular
Speaker 1: episode was hilarious. Well, I think going through a winery
Speaker 1: is a great way to uh participate in negraatorism. And
Speaker 1: not just wineries. They have um like homegrown breweries now too.
Speaker 1: What like brewery people grow the hops on their land
Speaker 1: and make the beer and you drink it. Yeah. I'd
Speaker 1: like to go to the sire Nevada plant. I would
Speaker 1: say it's one of my goals in life. Find where
Speaker 1: they make that sweeten nectar. Have you been to uh Sweetwater? Uh? No?
Speaker 1: I never suck right down the street. It's like a
Speaker 1: good little happy, our place. That's what I hear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's fun, give you tastings and all. That is that aggrotourism. No,
Speaker 1: not really, not at all. Industrial tourism maybe yeah, that's
Speaker 1: visiting a brewery. So that's it. That's agritourism plus a
Speaker 1: touch of industrial tourism, just as an extra little nugget.
Speaker 1: That was free as it was alright. So if you
Speaker 1: want to learn more about agritourism, read an article by
Speaker 1: Robert Lamb. Just to complete the series, you can type
Speaker 1: in agritourism a g R I tourism in the handy
Speaker 1: search bart how stuff works dot com? And support your
Speaker 1: local farm. Get on the internet and there's something near nearby. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a ton of stuff. Oh and actually, what's that website?
Speaker 1: You got one? I do um. I gave you the
Speaker 1: one for the apprenticeships. If you want to actually be
Speaker 1: the person working that people are gawking at. Right, if
Speaker 1: you want to gawk at people working on a farm,
Speaker 1: go to rural Bounty. Are you are a l bounty
Speaker 1: dot com? I thought it would be aggrigawker the same thing. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's time now for administrative details. You're ready? Should we
Speaker 1: set this up for people who don't know what this
Speaker 1: means because it's the worst title ever. It is not.
Speaker 1: It's very sustinct and to the point. These are gifts
Speaker 1: thank you as from fans that send us things in
Speaker 1: and hopes that we will promote their little Etsy site.
Speaker 1: Well not just gifts like sometimes correspondence correspondence postcards. So um,
Speaker 1: well it's been a while and we've gotten some pretty
Speaker 1: good stuff, a lot of stuff. This is gonna take
Speaker 1: like an hour, it is. I just want to say
Speaker 1: thanks to Mr Cohen at Waterford Union High School and Waterford,
Speaker 1: Wisconsin for those nice letter and the information on um
Speaker 1: goats that produced spider silk, including it drawing go badgers.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah he was actually was it bad Badger for
Speaker 1: a while? Wisconsin. Oh, I thought I made that up.
Speaker 1: Now you're thinking of Wolverines. It's a lucky guess you go.
Speaker 1: Uh Center College women's volleyball team sent us one of
Speaker 1: their T shirts. They are the Spandex Mafia. Yeah we
Speaker 1: all three got one. Yes. Thanks to Kristen for even
Speaker 1: more newgat Thank you Stilicious Kristen Ferguson with her neat.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Sarah Michelle for the copy of Dianetics hardcover,
Speaker 1: No less, you got that. Wow. Jeremy and Heather in Asheville,
Speaker 1: North Carolina make Eco friend the artwork. Custom would carve
Speaker 1: wedding cake toppers and they sent Um they made a
Speaker 1: little Josh, a little Jerry and a little Chuck and
Speaker 1: they're really awesome looking. I put it on Facebook. You
Speaker 1: were very proud of this. I just thought they looked
Speaker 1: really cool and they were you know, they look like us.
Speaker 1: And you can shop with him if you would like
Speaker 1: at ah You're a star house dot et s y
Speaker 1: dot com. That is, you are a star house dot
Speaker 1: etsy dot com. Nice Chuck. Thanks to Kentucky and night
Speaker 1: Nikki for the postcard of the London I yeah. Thanks
Speaker 1: a mill to Kevin at jadabug roasters dot com. That's
Speaker 1: j A d A b u g Roasters dot com
Speaker 1: for the not one, but two pounds of coffee that
Speaker 1: why didn't I see any of this? You always give
Speaker 1: me the coffee. This didn't even pass this one by you, man.
Speaker 1: I'll bring it in for you if you want. David
Speaker 1: Polly uh San Francisco. He runs a small print shop
Speaker 1: and he sent um some cool custom concert poster city
Speaker 1: prints and I collect these posters, and he said he
Speaker 1: would keep me in mind for the future and sending
Speaker 1: me some of these does very nice. Did he send
Speaker 1: you two of the two versions of the same as
Speaker 1: that the one I have that Jerry got one to
Speaker 1: we all three got Okay, that's very cool, very cool.
Speaker 1: I would have liked to have been at that festival.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Casey from Huntsville for the very nice letter
Speaker 1: and the sketch of the octopus. Keep listening, Casey, and
Speaker 1: we will keep you laughing. Right. Jennifer of Lynchburg, Virginia
Speaker 1: sent us little Nimn Christmas ornaments. Very cute. They are
Speaker 1: very cute. Yes, thanks a million to Kate in Sunny
Speaker 1: Vale for our awesome card. That's the one that has
Speaker 1: us as the Estonian wedding couple. Uh. And the thank
Speaker 1: you to Matt and Zach at the our List podcast
Speaker 1: if you've been on there. Yeah, they sent the shirts. Yes,
Speaker 1: they did send the shirts. And at first, without reading
Speaker 1: the card, I thought it was a drawing of Uze.
Speaker 1: These guys are adoppel gangers. Yeah, I saw it. I
Speaker 1: was like, it's sort of a good likeness, but not really.
Speaker 1: Right now, I'm like, okay, it's them. So they have
Speaker 1: a podcast called our List. You want to check it out. Um,
Speaker 1: it's our List podcast, I believe. And speaking of shirts,
Speaker 1: standard clothing in print in Canada, North Carolina sent some
Speaker 1: shirts and I got a Hoosier's T shirt, a Jimmy
Speaker 1: Chitwood number fifteen. Who's your T shirt? It's because you
Speaker 1: are a well loved celebrity. Jim Jerry got one and
Speaker 1: you got one different ones and that is standard clothing
Speaker 1: in print dot com. Thank you to Amy who sent
Speaker 1: us her copy of or a copy of her doctoral
Speaker 1: thesis A Metrica with an exclamation point about the metric
Speaker 1: system and how it should be used in America. And
Speaker 1: it's pretty awesome. I wrote a blog post on it.
Speaker 1: She mailed it. I got it like two days later,
Speaker 1: so you can check that out. Just type in A M, E,
Speaker 1: T R, I C A and it brings up some stuff.
Speaker 1: I don't think she has an actual site for it though,
Speaker 1: although she's on Twitter much neglected Twitter account. A Metrica interesting.
Speaker 1: I got two more. Matt invented his own chewing gum.
Speaker 1: It's good too. It's called think Gum and it's supposedly
Speaker 1: brain boosting with herbal extracts and naturally caffeinated and you
Speaker 1: can find that at think gum dot com. And my
Speaker 1: last one a little controversial. In my house, we got
Speaker 1: handmade soaps sent to us from Jan Maurice Silvera Yeah
Speaker 1: World soaps. W h I R L E ED soap.
Speaker 1: And I told Emily about this because everyone knows my
Speaker 1: wife makes her soup. She was like, let me see that.
Speaker 1: She checked it out and checked out the ink. She
Speaker 1: immediately looks at the ingredients. This first thing she always said.
Speaker 1: She was like, Oh, it's actually you know, made of
Speaker 1: essential oils and and olive oil and palm oils. Good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really good soap. Um. Thank you to Cameron, your
Speaker 1: letter got to us just fine. Thanks to the Pinks
Speaker 1: for sending their c D. Thanks thanks to l Michelle
Speaker 1: down in Panama for the postcard. Very titillating postcard. Um.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Vanessa for the Jackalope postcard. I still got
Speaker 1: some more chuck hanging there. Thanks to Jan from Niagara
Speaker 1: Falls for a postcard of the namesake of her hometown.
Speaker 1: Thanks to amare It and Boone, North Carolina for the
Speaker 1: nice letter We'll see what we can do. Thanks to
Speaker 1: Laurel who sent us the Meyer Lemon Vanilla beam rmalade.
Speaker 1: I didn't know about that either, Okay, I was. I
Speaker 1: didn't know if I gave you some or not. You
Speaker 1: just funnel some of these straight to Josh's house about it.
Speaker 1: I had to ask you for the gum. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I gave you the whole box. Thank you to Nick
Speaker 1: from mud River Coffee mud River Coffee dot com. More
Speaker 1: coffee you. This is where I got the idea to
Speaker 1: just keep the two pounds for myself. I was like, well,
Speaker 1: let's split this year. Like, here're the coffee guy, you
Speaker 1: keep it. Awesome coffee, um, let's see. Thanks to Katerina
Speaker 1: from Lenifalou, Hungary for the nice postcard of Joseph Stalind.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Robert for the Route sixties six postcard. Thanks
Speaker 1: to zach Netzer for the awesome um Mix CD. Thanks
Speaker 1: to Andrew Smith at Andrew Smith art dot com for
Speaker 1: the DVDs Did you see this? Thank you to Jen
Speaker 1: from Australia for the postcard of the theme park, and
Speaker 1: thank you to staff Sergeant Rusting Kozahar cozy R. I
Speaker 1: think it's cozy R for the postcard from Afghanistan. Be safe,
Speaker 1: that is it? Yes, all of you, not just the
Speaker 1: staff sergeant. Everyone be safe, um, and thank you very
Speaker 1: much for sending us some stuff. If you guys want
Speaker 1: to run in droves to the stuff, you should know
Speaker 1: facebook page and UM. If you have a link that
Speaker 1: you want to share with everybody, please do because all
Speaker 1: this stuff was great. Thank you and if you want
Speaker 1: to send us something, you can find our address by
Speaker 1: emailing us. Uh. It's stuff podcast at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics.
Speaker 1: Is it how stuff works dot com. To learn more
Speaker 1: about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the
Speaker 1: upper right corner of our homepage. The How Stuff Works
Speaker 1: iPhone app has arrived. Download it today on iTunes. Brought
Speaker 1: to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
Speaker 1: are you