The mazes in maize

Rick and Brenda Sutton love to get lost with their grandchildren.

Every autumn, the Summerville couple take them, a few of their friends and maybe even their grown children to Legare Farms on Johns Island to walk through the 10-acre Charleston Corn Maze, as well as to pick pumpkins, take a hayride and feed the cows.

The couple, accompanied by granddaughters Savannah and Emmy and two of their friends, took their annual trip last Saturday and spent hours on the farm, including an hour in the maze with only the stars and moon to guide them.

"I love it because you don't hear traffic," says Rick Sutton. "Even though there are other people there, there's a calmness and serenity. You really can get lost. You can forget about TV and computer games. It doesn't matter what the stock market is doing or what the price of gas is."

Mazes through corn or sorghum fields, while common in other parts of the nation for decades, are increasingly becoming a part of the Lowcountry landscape. It's a trend that reflects the need for relatively small, local farms to find income sources other than producing food.

That's agri-tainment!

The trend is part of a larger national effort known interchangeably as "agri-tainment" or "agri-tourism."

Agri-tainment can range from conventional activities — including the Halloween-themed activities mentioned above, "u-pick" strawberry patches and petting zoos — to the more specialized and unusual, such as the recent "(muscadine) grape stomping" at Irvin-House Vineyards on Wadmalaw Island.

"It (agri-tainment) has become a way for smaller farmers here and across the country to make better use of the land," says Brock White, director of agriculture at Boone Hall Plantation, which has a corn maze. "It's also a byproduct of urban sprawl."

White notes that as suburban development has moved into traditional farmland, often surrounding it as in Boone Hall's case, the land values and taxes have gone up. That has presented yet another challenge — along with competition from cheap industrial and overseas agriculture and rising labor and fuel costs — to retaining functioning local farms.

Another benefit of agri-tainment is to introduce urban and suburban children to farming and livestock. The farmers note that many children have never seen a cow up close and think food comes from the supermarket, not from the land.

"Kids may pass a cornfield in a car and have no idea of how many things come from corn," says Susan West Story, who returns to West Farm in Moncks Corner every fall for the corn maze. "We try to add a little educational lesson to the experience by teaching them about corn and the 2,500 products in the grocery that contain some corn ingredient."

Newer to Lowcountry

Corn mazes have been a staple of Midwestern farms for years, but within the past decade, they have become a more common part of the Lowcountry landscape in the fall. The mazes are a major part of a lure that draws upward of 12,000 people to some of the local farms.

The Ambrose family on Wadmalaw kicked it off nearly a decade ago, running the Charleston Corn Maze for three years before selling the rights and Web site to Legare Farms on Johns Island.

Within that time period, Boone Hall Plantation in Mount Pleasant cut its first one and has offered a maze when droughts and deluges didn't wreck conditions. Boone Hall's current one is cut in the shape of a scarecrow on 8 acres of corn.

Four years ago, the West family in Moncks Corner started one. This year's is on 6 acres of corn.

And this year, Durwood and Laura Collins of Barnyard Bay Farm on Edisto Island had one cut from a 6-acre sorghum patch.

"We're still an operating farm, but we're facing pressures from development and taxes," says Durwood Collins, who owns an 80-acre farm that has been in the family since 1740. "We want to find something more lucrative so we can keep from getting swallowed up."

Pray for good weather

Of the four farms with mazes, three of them hired specialists "from off" (such as Salt Lake City and Firth, Idaho) to create a design via global-positioning satellite coordinates and cut it out, while Legare simply creates its own design and cuts it while the corn stalks are no higher than 6 inches tall.

The farms grow the fields primarily for the mazes — for agri-tainment.

Almost all have been open for a month already, and even though the corn has turned from green to brown and taken a beating from recent rains, most reported Sunday as their busiest day so far and expect this weekend to be the peak of attendance.

Just as farmers have relied heavily on the weather for centuries, all are hoping for good weather — in this case, cool and dry.

"If we don't have a good October," says Helen Legare of Legare Farms, "we struggle all year long."

Get lost!

Check out these mazes in the Lowcountry this weekend.

Barnyard Bay Farm on Edisto Island: 4-10 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Saturday; 1-6 p.m. Sunday. Adults $8, seniors (65+) $6, children (4-11) $6, children 3 and under free. barnyardbayfarm.com.

Boone Hall Plantation in Mount Pleasant: 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday through Saturday; noon-6 p.m. Sunday. Adults $10, children under 12 $8. boonehallplantation.com/corn_maze.

Legare Farms on Johns Island: 3-10 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Saturday; 1-6 p.m. Sunday. Adults $6, children 11 and under $3, children under 2 free. charlestoncornmaze.com.

West Farm near Moncks Corner: 5-10 p.m. Friday; noon-10 p.m. Saturday; 2-10 p.m. Sunday. Adults $8, children 3-11 $4, under 3 free. westfarmcornmaze.com.

Reach David Quick at 937-5516 or dquick@postand courier.com.

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