The true story of how tobacco shaped Appalachia during the 1900s as told by The Appalachian Storyteller.
VIDEO HERE (8:04 minutes)
The true story of how tobacco shaped Appalachia during the 1900s as told by The Appalachian Storyteller.
VIDEO HERE (8:04 minutes)
I did all of this growing up to make money to buy school clothing. Started off handing tobacco from the sled to the loopers, then did priming the leaves, and hanging it in the barn. Its hard work.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first moved here, there were tobacco fields everywhere, it seemed. No so much now, and it's only been 7 years.
DeleteDid some other crop take their place? or are they just pasture or something else?
DeleteJerry
Jerry - soybeans, silage and hay. Soybeans are big around here. That's the crop they rotated with tobacco.
DeleteHemp was big for a year or two, but that flopped.
Uou know about fallow and crop rotation. What another seven yrs.
DeleteHas it been seven yrs already?
They don't rotate them every seven years. It was every other year. That 7 year rotation nonsense went out the window when chemical fertilizers became widespread.
DeleteIt's government regulations that made farmers quit growing it.
It has been that long. I remember it was 2016, because I was off work for four months from a nasty infection and surgeries, and read about his move during that period.
DeleteYou're right - I retired on the 1st of April 2016 and moved here just a couple weeks later.
DeleteYou could go to any hospital in NC and find units, wings, even the whole hospital built with donations from tobacco families. Not any more.
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting this.
ReplyDeleteBoth sets of my grandparents grew tobacco as a cash crop, and both of my parents worked it. I recall planting as a little kid, but most of the process did not get passed down to me and my brother. I can confirm what Anon said--both of my parents said it's hard work.
Back in the day when tobacco was selling, everyone had a tobacco patch. Now when you see tobacco, it's usually (but not always) a large field of it. I've seen some fields up in Kentucky that were huge.
I always joke that working tobacco made me join the Army, because anything had to be easier. Hardest work I ever did. We lived in Southern Kentucky near Lake Cumberland when I was in Jr. High and High School. Seems like everyone grew tobacco back in the ‘80s. I went back to visit friends about 10 years ago and all the tobacco was gone. I guess there’s less of a market for it, now.
ReplyDeleteThe tobacco companies were sued so some class action lawyers could make a shit load of money. The individual was left out. Amazing how people could live to 70's and 80's and still smoke. Now you have a covid death jab taking people out in teens to 80s. But that is okay. Where is the firing squad when you need it. My wife could find out what was happening in the company on her smoke break because that was people of all levels going to the smoking area. A wood chipper is too kind for fauci, fda, cdc.
ReplyDeleteI can literally go for days now without seeing the rare cigarette smoker. Back in the day I remember having to plot a path to my work cubicle that avoided the heaviest smokers.
ReplyDeleteThe best lunch ever was prepared by the farmers wife. A table cloth would be spread over the food and supper would be ready. The smell of curing tobacco is still one of my favorites, that takes me back to my childhood. And camping out at the barn to make sure the fire kept burning. Yes, hard work, but some fine memories!
ReplyDeleteThe process is the same from that film(50's) to when I remember it(70's). The only difference was we had tractors and used kerosene to clean up after sortin as it was faster. I smelled that smokin barn during the film, good times.
ReplyDeleteSome of that hard work would cure many of todays societal ills for sure.
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