It became harder.
Across the Midwest, input costs rose sharply.
Synthetic nitrogen products became more expensive.
Petroleum-based agricultural chemicals climbed with supply pressures.
Commercial growers felt the increase immediately.
Arthur Vance felt it on six thousand acres.
A small cost increase multiplied across a large operation became a frightening number.
He relied on fertilizer.
Fungicides.
Fuel.
Contracted spraying.
Computerized drip systems.
Credit.
By June, Vance had taken additional operating financing.
Farmers heard the number whispered around the feed store.
Two hundred thousand dollars.
Arthur denied it when asked.
But his suppliers knew.
Then disease arrived.
Early blight had appeared in the region before.
Farmers understood it.
What worried them that year was how quickly symptoms spread through several commercial tomato operations during periods of warmth and humidity.
Dark lesions appeared.
Lower leaves yellowed.
Vines weakened.
Growers sprayed.
Some contained it.
Others struggled.
Arthur's operation suffered badly.
The uniformity that made industrial farming efficient also meant entire blocks of plants responded similarly to pressure.
Cole's field behaved differently.
Forty historic varieties did not share one exact genetic response.
Some plants showed disease.
Cole removed affected leaves.
Several individual plants failed entirely.
But the field as a whole did not collapse.
Diversity created irregularity.
Irregularity created resilience.
Cole's soil conditions helped too.
He avoided waterlogged foliage.
Maintained airflow through pruning.
Used wide spacing.
Supported vines off the ground.
The restored biological activity around roots appeared to help overall plant vigor.
Cole never claimed the field was immune.
It was not.
He simply had enough variation that one problem did not move uniformly through every row.
By late June, Arthur's fields showed widening patches of loss.
Cole's vines climbed.
He installed cedar posts.
Then more.
Baling twine ran between them.
Some plants passed six feet.
Several approached eight.
The five acres became a dense green maze.
Cole could disappear inside it.
And then the fruit began to color.
The first Brandywine ripened pink.
Cole carried it to the workshop.
Set it on Clara's old wooden desk.
He waited until Raymond arrived.
"You going to eat it or worship it?" Raymond asked.
Cole cut it.
The interior was dense and deep pink.
He handed half to his uncle.
Raymond tasted.
Stopped chewing.
Looked at Cole.
"That's a tomato."
Cole laughed.
"Usually what they are."
"No."
Raymond pointed with the fruit.
"Those red baseballs at the supermarket are pretending."
More varieties followed.
Cherokee Purple.
Dark shoulders.
Dusky skin.
Rich interior.
Mortgage Lifter.
Huge fruit, some approaching two pounds.
German Pink.
Green Zebra.
Yellow and red bicolors.
Long paste types.
Flavors ranged from sweet to acidic, smoky to almost fruity.
The field stopped looking like a commercial tomato operation.