The cabbage patches along Route 20 just outside of Seneca, N.Y., are as big as some of the dairy farms in Harford County.
Farmers in Lancaster County, Pa., alone produce more than twice the amount of milk of all the dairy farms in Maryland.
While maple syrup production has slowed to a trickle in Garrett County, it is still big business in rural sections of New York and Pennsylvania.
These are just a few tidbits of agriculture knowledge I picked up during recent tours of farming operations in New York and Pennsylvania. Viewing farm operations in other states drives home the point that whoever first said that Maryland was America in Miniature must have been talking about agriculture.
Agriculture is still a big business in Maryland. State economic development officials have estimated that agriculture, including all phases of the production and distribution of food and fiber, is a $17 billion-a-year business employing about 64,000 workers in the state.
Maryland is a lot like New York and Pennsylvania in that its farm industry is widely diversified. Generally speaking, Maryland farms offers a little of this and a little of that.
It has grain farms and vegetable farms. Other farms produce milk, beef cattle, hogs, eggs and even some mushrooms. The greenhouse/nursery business is growing rapidly, and chicken is still the king of the roost.
Poultry is Maryland's single largest farm sector, with sales of more than $530 million a year, or about a third of the state's total farm sales.
Some other observations as I drove through farming regions of Pennsylvania and New York to get a better understanding of farming and Maryland's role in the big picture:
* Tobacco was a major crop in Maryland for more than 350 years. It was considered the backbone of the Southern Maryland economy from shortly after the landing of the Ark and the Dove at St. Clements Island in 1634 until 2000, when Gov. Parris N. Glendening began paying farmers not to grow it anymore.
Farmers still produce about 1.5 million pounds of leaf a year, but that compares with more than 26 million pounds produced by Pennsylvania farmers.
* Pennsylvania has more than 58,000 farms. In New York, there are more than 34,000, or nearly three times as many as in Maryland.
* Apple orchards along Maryland's northern border from Cecil County to Washington County produce about 34 million pounds of apples, valued at just over $6.8 million.
