Our newspapers regularly print features of interest to gardeners. Some even have special sections to appeal to their affluent gardening readers. All the while, the lives of farm workers generally pass virtually unnoticed. If we paid farm workers as well as those who labor on Wall Street and accorded farm workers the sort of dignity that college professors enjoy, parents might still try to steer their children away from farm work because of the frequent exposure to potentially lethal toxins. But then, if society esteemed farm workers, farmer owners would not and could not spray them with impunity.
Gardeners engage in a modest sort of passionate labor.
They tend to take pride in their gardens. They work with care and joy. They can take pleasures in their surroundings and feel a part of nature. Farm workers take orders or, if they work by the piece, they must concentrate all their energies on picking an enormous quantity of fruits and vegetables, just to make ends meet. Recall how the short-handled hoe was designed to put a quick stop to any possible reveries about the farm workers' surroundings.