RESPONSES TO “PUTTING OUT” A TOBACCO CROP

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

I wish you a Happy Holiday Season and thank you for your support and encouragement.  Even in this difficult time, may your hearts be lightened as we gather with family and friends.

RESPONSES

The last post on growing a tobacco crop brought responses from people whose memories carried back seventy or more years. I am sharing those memories with you. They convey, far better than I could, what tobacco has meant to them and to so many others.

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This brings back many memories!! In my youth, I worked in "green tobacco;" my dad was a buyer for Liggett & Myers (I attended many auctions in tobacco warehouses, listening to the unique auctioneer's chant - Kinston was a major market in the Eastern Bright Belt w/5 sets of buyers, which allowed 5 simultaneous auctions - comparable to Wilson, Greenville & Rocky Mt.) & my father-in-law was a partner in a "Gulf" fuel oil business that sold fuel oil to farmers for curing tobacco (after the days of wood fired tobacco barns, which were real fire hazards). I also worked in a department store that sold goods to farmers via coupons that farmers would pay for in the late summer & fall when they sold their tobacco & were flush w/ cash - the entire economy of eastern NC was driven by tobacco. Thx for sending!

Duke University Engineer

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Bravo on a highly descriptive presentation of the steps necessary to produce a cash crop of tobacco! I don’t believe that I’ve ever told you of my early childhood summer days visiting my grandfather in Athol, Mass., where large stands of tobacco plants were planted and tended, as you so eloquently described, to cure before being picked for aging in barns. When I returned each day to Grandad’s house, the first order of business was to fill the bathtub with hot water to peel off the resin accumulated in that process. It was my first paying job to supplement my meager paper route earnings over the rest of the year! Can’t wait for the “rest of the story” as Paul Harvey would have called said!! 

Investment Advisory Firm Owner

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Your article and the additional stories from the three ladies are a great read. Thank you. The process of growing tobacco that you refer to is somewhat different than my experience in that we raised Southern Maryland air cured Burley versus flu cured Virginia/Bright tobacco. However, the spirit and the attitude and the values and the approach to work are very similar…. (As an executive), I always had a high regard for the employees that had been raised on a tobacco farm. The understanding and appreciation of the rewards from hard work are a lesson never to be forgotten. Additionally, the one year when we had little to no rain in the summer, basically a drought, also taught me at a young age that there are no guarantees of good results no matter how hard one may work…. yet there was always “Next Spring”.

Executive – International Tobacco Industry

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I always liked it when it rained a good soaking rain when setting out tobacco plants! This kept you from having to carry water to the field which was very heavy! A gallon of water weighed about 7 lbs. Any labor in life seemed easy after growing up on a tobacco farm! (This meant the young teenager had to carry a five-gallon bucket weighting 35 pounds into the field on a hot, dry summer day.)

Career U.S. Army Veteran

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This reminded me of my first assignment as an officer in the 101st Airborne Division at Ft. Campbell, KY. over sixty years ago. I lived about twenty minutes away from the post in Clarksville, TN in a room rented from Mrs. Louis Johnson. She had a small tobacco plot, much less than an acre, in her backyard which I think was her principal means of support.  Thanks for the memory. 

U.S Military Academy Graduate

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So interesting to read about the process of growing the Tobacco from planting the seeds to the curing.  Have to feel sorry for the people working in the fields.  Children today have no idea how hard some children had to work, helping on the Farms.  Tobacco did help bring the arts and other things we enjoyed to NC. Good story.  

A Dear Friend, NC Native

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Brings back memories of my relatives on the farms in eastern Kentucky with Burley tobacco.

RJR Executive

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Everything you said matches up with what I recall about working in tobacco when I was growing up.

My first job in tobacco was as a "hander" when I was around 6 years old in 1960. I would get three leaves of tobacco out of the sled, put the three stems together and hand the group to a "stringer" to tie to a tobacco stick. The stringer was typically the farmer's wife or a daughter. I did this for 25 cents an hour. When I turned 8 or 9, I started driving the tractor that pulled the sled thru the tobacco field and back to the tobacco barn when it was full. I did this for two farmers for a couple of years. As I recall, I made around 75 cents an hour for doing this. When I turned 10, I became a primer on one farm. Luckily, the farmer did this early on Saturday mornings before the sun got too hot. My mother grew up on a cotton farm in Wake County and was anxious that my brother and I had the experience of pulling tobacco! I believe that she thought that the experience would encourage us to study hard in school so that we would not have to do this for the rest of our lives!  As you point out in your essay, this work is not fun! Getting wet early in the morning from the dew and sticky gum all over your hands. I believe that I was paid around $1.25 an hour for priming around 1964-1965.

N.C. State University Electrical Engineer

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We had a 3.2-acre allotment.[i] I remember the exact number (70 years later) because it was so important to us.  About 1951, we hoped to make about $1200 off our tobacco crop, and that cash was critical.  And Dad said, if we make that this year, I am going to buy a chainsaw. We had to saw the firewood by hand for the tobacco barn fireplaces. (So, a chainsaw would be a godsend.)[ii]

High School Classmate 1957

[i] A U.S. Agriculture dictated maximum production – to be explained in a future post.

[ii] This purchase needs some perspective in 2021 dollars. The $1,200 tobacco profit is $12,600, 2021 adjusted. And a 24-inch chain saw can be bought today for $219, but the chainsaw was “new” technology in 1951.  A comparable 24-inch saw sold for $325, equivalent to $3,412, 2021 adjusted.