Pennsylvania

Jim Inch’s story began in Snyder County before his father Robert rented a house, then owned by the power company, on White Island.

In 1944, Robert swapped five mules—his farming power source—for a down payment on an International Harvester F-12. He planted 65 acres of feed corn, cultivated it three times, hired men to hand-husk it, then paid them with corn, leaving plenty for his corncrib.

Later that season, he learned that his down payment covered the tractor, and he even received a $200 rebate on it. The next year, he planted 36 more acres of corn on White’s Island.

“Dad said right then that he should have quit farming while he was ahead,” says Jim, 81. “You can be rich one day and poor the next in this business.”

Jim, though retired, still works seven days a week. He lives on another farm owned by Roy Adams & Son, Inc., which now has the unique farming rights to White’s and three other islands in the Susquehanna.

Tammy Wolfe, Roy Adams’ daughter and office manager in Sunbury, PA, says most don’t realize how hard farmers work, where food comes from or how technology-based today’s farming is. “We’re proud of that work and proud to be a part of it,” she says.

https://www.susquehannalife.com/2016/06/06/113206/tell-us-your-story-farming-susquehanna-river-islands

They take two different valleys, as they head south. Notice all the natural gas development in this area.

Since 1972, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania has burned municipal trash in an incinerator downtown and landfilled the unburnable trash on site.

LEFT - 1993
RIGHT - 2019

They managed to fit US 322, PA 333 through this narrow gap in Blue and Shade Mountains.