Cornfields and kids are made for each other.

At this time of year, even city kids get a chance to romp in the rows of tall stalks where fore-sighted farmers planted patterns in the spring that would yield some challenging mazes. It’s a common practice now for entertainment to mix with agriculture in order to turn that essential extra penny.

For youngsters brought up on a farm, the fun factor of a cornfield rated high. Well, it wasn’t all fun. First came planting the tar-coated kernels that were meant to foil hungry crows. It always resulted in black, sticky and smelly fingers at the end of the day.

As the corn grew, there would be days of hoeing weeds in the hot sun, but eventually the corn would climb to heights just right for hide-and-seek games by pre-teen boys like my brother and me. The cornfield became a jungle where leopards could pounce or a forest where Indians hid.

Near the end of August my father and grandfather would search – stalk by stalk – for the best ears of corn to represent our Echo Farm at the Maine State Fair. Those stalks were off-limits until fair week came and the Sugar and Gold sweet corn entries headed to the exhibition hall.

As the middle of September approached, it was time for the real harvest, when each ear was stripped by hand from the stalk and dropped in wire-handled bushel baskets. The baskets were dumped over the high sides of our Ford Model A truck until the mound topped the roof of the cab.

Truckload after truckload of corn rolled off the field and headed a couple of miles to the “corn factory.” The factory I recall was located on Lake Auburn Avenue a short distance from my elementary school – the original two-story Washburn School with its distinctive bell tower. The Lake Auburn Townhouse, built in 1968 as a 100-unit housing facility for the elderly, now stands on the site of the old corn factory.

The large yard at the factory was dominated by a long open-sided structure parallel to the street. Its roof stood high enough so that several trucks could back up under it on each side. The loads of corn would be raked off by hand onto a conveyor belt in the middle of the receiving area. The belt carried the corn into a large building where employees husked it and prepared it for the canning process.

My memories stop at that conveyor belt. It was a fascinating operation for a young boy. I never saw what was inside the factory, but I’m sure there are many people in the Twin Cities who recall working there.

Ralph B. Skinner’s fine book, “Auburn – 100 Years a City,” filled out a lot of details about the local canning industry for me.

I learned that United Packers put up the first factory in the 1880s when Lake Auburn Avenue was called French Street. Later, Burnham-Morrill took over the old horse-car barn at 74 French St. and converted it into a canning factory, the book said, adding that the factory was destroyed by lightning. When rebuilt, the factory became “the largest and longest-operating canning shop in Auburn.”

The book states that the last pack there was made in 1949. It said, “Mrs. Gladys (Davis) Worthley was the last superintendent of the Auburn factory. She kept the office open until 1956 in behalf of the local farmers,” who also produced for the B&M plant in South Paris until 1966.

North Auburn was another canning center. An operation begun by J. Webster Bennett at Little Wilson Pond in 1911 was moved to North Auburn in 1919, the book said.

“He did an extensive business and put out such products as baked beans,” the Skinner book reports. “He specialized in custom canning. After he retired, the factory was demolished.”

Other operations recorded in “Auburn – 100 Years a City,” were a West Auburn canning business run by Philip Hiitt. That family business produced chicken pies and baked beans in the 1950s and ’60s.

“From 1941 to 1952, the Maine Baking Co. on Minot Avenue also put out baked beans,” according to the book.