LEOMINSTER — We’re bouncing around through 27 acres of corn — green and silky stalks of a vegetable so sweet that people line up for it — and 19-year-old John Gove jumps out of a muddy Jeep and grabs an ear so perfect it resembles the work of a master pastoral artist.
“Go ahead,’’ he tells me, flashing a wide and knowing smile. “Eat it.’’
Gove is the seventh generation of farmers who have been coaxing vegetables from the soil here hard by Route 2 since Abraham Lincoln was in the White House.
Taking a break from work that begins before sunrise and ends when natural light has faded into a sultry darkness, he sits next to his father at the back of the family’s roadside farm store and explains why he’ll return to the fields of Leominster once he collects his horticulture degree from Michigan State in a few years.
“After you put all that work into it, there’s something tangible to it,’’ the rising college sophomore told me this week, just days before leaving for East Lansing. “You know you’ve been working since February and through the spring — working every day. And then, at the end of summer, you can see the result.
“People smile when they walk out.’’
Yes, they certainly do. With good reason.
It’s corn season in New England. Cars are crowding dusty farmstand parking lots. Dozens of ears of white-and-yellow corn are being stuffed into recycled paper bags. Corn is being shucked, boiled, buttered and — alongside cold beers and lobster rolls — devoured at backyard barbecues and sandy beachside bungalows.
“There’s nothing like slathering on Massachusetts-produced butter and a reasonable amount of salt,’’ said John Lebeaux, the state’s commissioner of agricultural resources, who lives in Shrewsbury on land that was once his grandfather’s farm.
“It’s become part of our summer culture. Biting into an ear of fresh locally produced corn, there’s a nostalgia there. And good thoughts of summer.’’
In Massachusetts, there are 15,000 acres of all types of corn, of which 3,000 are of the sweet variety that have people beating a path to Gove Farm.
Like his son, 58-year-old Paul Gove went off to college. He collected his Cornell horticulture degree in 1982. And like his son will one day, he returned to the farm where he learned from his father what farmers have always known.
The work is hard. And long. And satisfying.
“Most people don’t realize that there’s only one ear per stalk per year,’’ the elder Gove explained. “People are always amazed at that. That’s why it takes so much land to grow it. The corn we picked today was seeded on May 25th. I have a map in my truck I can show you.
“Our goal is to have perfect corn here every day in the summer. And, by perfect corn, I mean not only does it have the best quality, but it has to be the right maturity. No insects. No diseases. No bird pecks.’’
That kind of perfection is not simply the product of Mother Nature’s benevolence.
A half hour before we spoke, Paul Gove was helping to pull a tractor out of mud that was up to his knees.
“There are some days when you do something and you think: I could really use a desk job right now,’’ said John Gove, who has raised enough cherry tomatoes — from seed to sale — to pay for his second year at college.
“You can do something like that and you’ll be making good money up until two days ago when you get four-and-a-half inches of rain and all the tomatoes crack,’’ he said. “And then you can’t sell them. So, in that sense, you never have a set income.’’
Or a good night’s sleep.
What keeps the Goves up at night? What doesn’t?
“You have to pay attention to have a good living,’’ Paul Gove said. “It doesn’t just happen. But it is possible.’’
He’s up at 5:15 a.m. There’s a 20-minute regimen of stretching. He’s out the door at 6:30. The work crews begin at 7 a.m. All the corn is picked by hand.
“Two-and-a-half dozen a minute, if it’s good corn,’’ John Gove said.
There’s an emphasis there on the word “good.’’ Because the trap doors are everywhere.
Too much rain. Too much sun. Balky pumps. Pesky birds. Pests, like sap beetles, which require spraying to vanquish.
“I don’t want to spray when the bees are flying, and the bees don’t go to bed until after sunset,’’ Gove said. “We want to do everything we can to keep the bees happy.’’
Bees are the farmer’s friend.
It’s a different farm than the one he took over from his father, Warren Gove who died in May at the age of 86. Some 20 acres were lost when nearby Route 2 was built. More acres were later consumed when Interstate 190 was completed.
Today’s tractors are better. The seeding process is more precise. The soil is more tolerant. The stalks of corn are stronger. The corn, simply put, tastes better.
But some things are as constant as the sunrise. His mother, Beatrice, still arrives at 10 every morning with a tray of brownies, or muffins, or cupcakes. “She bakes for the whole crew,’’ her son said.
If anyone has an appreciation for the hard work that makes the farm grow, it’s Beatrice Gove. And now her grandson.
“There’s so much more work than people realize,’’ John said. “It’s not: You throw the seed in the ground, you wait a little while, and then in summer you can pick vegetables. The vegetables just don’t appear on the farmstand.
“I think people misunderstand Mother Nature the most. We can’t control the fact that all of our tomatoes split because of the rain. We can’t control the fact that we don’t have rain for four weeks. We can irrigate, but we have to work with what we have.’’
Want some advice from the experts? Get fresh corn and cook it immediately.
“We only sell the corn the day we pick it,’’ John Gove said. “And we tell people to eat it the day they buy it. If it all happens in the same day, that’s ideal.’’
And if you think an ear of corn is an ear of corn, you didn’t get up before dawn with the Gove family.
“So, what we’re picking today is called ‘Allure,’ ’’ Paul Gove said.
Allure? What else? Essence. Temptation. Espresso. Cameo. Providence. Latte.
“Yeah, Allure is good,’’ John said.
“Essence is good,’’ Paul said.
Back at the farm store, customers just know this: Gove corn is good.
“I’ve been eating it since I was a little girl and now I’m 67,’’ Sheila Eydenberg of Lancaster told me. “It’s the best corn I’ll ever eat. We were raised on it. Once you’ve eaten it, it’s like nothing else. This is it. Everything gets compared to this corn.’’
I looked around for the camera crew that surely must be filming a commercial whose script was written by Paul Gove.
But Eydenberg assured me her endorsement is genuine. She has brothers in Virginia. When they come to visit, they insist on the corn Paul Gove’s family has been planting for generations.
The line forms in the morning, so she arrives early.
There’s hell to pay if she comes home empty-handed. Because that would ruin any summertime feast.
Thomas Farragher is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at thomas.farragher@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @FarragherTom.