The H H Harlow Pickle Company has appeared in the small town of Link Lake, using heavy-handed tactics to force family farmers to either farm the Harlow way or lose their biggest customer - and, possibly, their land.

The year is 1955. Andy Meyer, a young farmer, manages the pickle factory in Link Lake, a rural town where the farms are small, the conversation is meandering, and the feeling is distinctly Midwestern. Workers sort, weigh, and dump cucumbers into huge vats where the pickles cure, providing a livelihood to local farmers. But the H. H. Harlow Pickle Company has appeared in town, using heavy-handed tactics to force family farmers to either farm the Harlow way or lose their biggest customer—and, possibly, their land. Andy, himself the owner of a half-acre pickle patch, works part-time for the Harlow Company, a conflict that places him between the family farm and the big corporation. As he sees how Harlow begins to change the rural community and the lives of its people, Andy must make personal, ethical, and life-changing decisions. Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the American Association of School Librarians, and Outstanding Book, selected by the Public Library Association

Review
“Apps draws from his own rural upbringing to paint a touching picture of farm life and pickle-making in the sands of Central Wisconsin.” - Wisconsin Natural Resources “Charming.... Apps, who was born on a farm and who managed a pickle factory in the 1950s, invests the novel with the kind of realism, precise detail, and local color that only someone who had lived the story could do.” - Booklist"

Jerry Apps, born and raised on a Wisconsin farm, is professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. His many nonfiction books include Every Farm Tells a Story, Country Wisdom, One-Room Country Schools, Cheese, Breweries of Wisconsin, and Ringlingville USA. He is also the author of a historical novel, The Travels of Increase Joseph. He received the 2007 Major Achievement Award from the Council for Wisconsin Writers.