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By BONNIE PRICE LOFTON
Rappahannock News Contributing Writer
John Bums doesn’t look like a fanner with a troubled conscience. He looks like a college professorwith a trim, white beard and glasses off and on his nose-who somehow wandered into a lettuce patch.
I met Mr. Bums two months ago when I pulled .into his farm near Washington, Va. and asked if I could do volunteer labor a couple of hours a week in return for tips on orgranic farming.
“What a great proposal,”' Mr. Bums said in a wry tone. When I stepped into his ramshackle farmhouse, I found the walls covered with Haitain, African and Indian art. This was not'what I had envisioned when a friend, Sharon Luke, told me that a farmer named John might need a hand on his Goat Hill Organic Farm.
I discovered that the two goats and one pig were pets. The real business was lettuce and other salad vegetables-all sold exclusively to Sutton Place Gourment stores in metropolitian Washington, D.C. and Baltimore.
That first week I damaged a lot of lettuce. It’s tough not to crush leaves as you cut a head from its roots, trim its stem, and pack in into plastic trays. '*
“I’m glad you’re not paying me,,’ I joked to Mr. Bums when I returned for my second week. “You’d be losing money.”
He shrugged. “I’ve been doing this for five years, and I haven’t made a profit yet. But this crop should put me in the black.”
Mr. Bums, 49, globe-trotted as an agricultural consultant until he bought these 20 acres in Rappahannock County five years ago. Previously, he had lived in a dozen third world countries, often working for the Agency for International Development, UNICEF and other government bodies.
Today Mr. Bums labors shoulder-to shoulder with his senior hired man, Jim Bonser, a former miner from Wyoming who signed on four years ago. Mr. Bums is clearly in charge, but they treat each other like brothers. Two or three other hired hands help intermittently.
On my fourth week at the farm, Mr. Bonser, employee Ryan Scott and I worked alone among the rows of lettuce. Usually Mr. Bums worked beside us. We finished our harvesting and hauled the last plas
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