Nick Powers, 16, drives a 60,000-pound load of potatoes from a field to a storage facility in Mapleton. Powers is a junior at Presque Isle High School, one of a half-dozen schools that close for up to three weeks each autumn as kids help to bring in the potato crop. Educators and farmers are clinging to a tradition that give farmers much-needed help and puts money in the pockets of teenagers.

Nick Powers, 16, walks from a harvester to the truck he drives to haul potatoes from the field to a storage facility in Mapleton.

Andrew Paterson tosses potatoes from a conveyor system that sifts out the rocks and dirt.

High school students Adam Paterson, 15, front left, and Jordi Legasse, 17, front right, pulls rocks and and unwanted materials from a conveyor belt moving potatoes into storage facility in Mapleton.

Paterson, 15, strains to dump a barrel of discarded potatoes during a 12-hour work day.

Signs advertise some of the varieties of potatoes for sale outside a farm near Houlton. Farmers in Aroostook County harvest about 1.5 billion pounds of potatoes each year.

High school students, clockwise from lower left, Adam Paterson, 15, Brendan Hammond, 16, Andrew Paterson, 17, and Malerie Buck, 16, enjoy some down time during a 12-hour work-day at the Buck Farm potato storage facility in Mapleton. Educators and farmers are clinging to a tradition that give farmers much-needed help and puts money in the pockets of teenagers.

High school students clean up outside the Buck Farm potato storage facility in Mapleton.

A mechanical harvester fills trucks with potatoes in Mapleton. Although the harvest has become highly mechanized in recent years, many farmers in Aroostook County still rely on high school students to help drive the trucks and work in the storage facility.

Adam Paterson, 15, and his brother Andrew Paterson, 17, pause to watch a flock of Canada geese flying south over a potato storage facility.

Adam Paterson kicks a potato back onto an enormous pile at a storage facility in Mapleton, Maine. Each year the state harvests around 1.5 billion pounds of potatoes.

Andrew Paterson, left, and his brother Adam head home after a 12-hour work-day at a potato storage facility in Mapleton.