tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970975545475697571.post697704700730561838..comments2024-03-28T14:29:52.589-04:00Comments on Eaton Rapids Joe: Growing Tobacco in the Upper Mid-WestEaton Rapids Joehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09102166969915526172noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970975545475697571.post-13783833195078106482015-10-21T01:28:27.677-04:002015-10-21T01:28:27.677-04:00The Connecticut tobacco was primarily shade grown ...The Connecticut tobacco was primarily shade grown tobacco used in cigar wrappers. The Connecticut river valley is a super rich farmland as the lowlands flood every spring and bring fresh nutrients onto the land. The big tobacco barns used to be everywhere. Picking tobacco was a summer job for teens, much as working the fishing boats was for northwest boys. By the time I was able to pick tobacco, everyone spoke Spanish. Beautiful country, a lovely mix of rolling old hills with granite bones, woodland populated with sugar maple, shagbark hickory, elm (although gone now due to Dutch elm disease) Chestnut,( long gone due to blight), red and white oak, etc- a real mix of hardwoods and evergreens. The farm fields away from the river valleys were generally small scale, the streams clear and fast. As a boy I pulled many a eastern brook trout out of them, before the suburban sprawl covered the land. ravenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01856682279027941740noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970975545475697571.post-5188424163591661762015-10-20T20:15:59.757-04:002015-10-20T20:15:59.757-04:00Good luck, and I'd say don't get 'caug...Good luck, and I'd say don't get 'caught'... :-)Old NFOhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16404197287935017147noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970975545475697571.post-25092691062635749682015-10-20T20:15:55.974-04:002015-10-20T20:15:55.974-04:00Good luck, and I'd say don't get 'caug...Good luck, and I'd say don't get 'caught'... :-)Old NFOhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16404197287935017147noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970975545475697571.post-22571949671852813242015-10-20T14:38:41.398-04:002015-10-20T14:38:41.398-04:00Joe, I don't have any experience growing tobac...Joe, I don't have any experience growing tobacco, but have friends who still make the bulk of their family income doing so... Abolition of the 'tobacco base' in the 'tobacco settlement' probably rendered quite a few hill/mountain country properties, particularly in eastern KY, virtually worthless, as most of their economic value had historically been tied to the 'base'/production quota attached to that property... usually associated with the small spot of level, tillable ground where the tobacco was grown. <br /><br />Tobacco certainly bought a lot of Christmases and sent a lot of KY (and other Appalachian region) children to college. Sad to see it so viciously demonized, despite what we know to be some significant health issues associated with it... but free people should be allowed to choose... <br /><br />I can certainly inquire as to availability of seeds...seems like I've seen small packets for sale in the local farmer's Co-Op/Southern States farm stores. Husband of one of my co-workers made a big foray into growing several hundred acres of industrial hemp this year - some fiber types, some oil types. <br /><br />Over here in western KY, 120 miles or so west of where I'm guessing Pawpaw probably was stationed (Ft. Knox?)... they grow two main types of tobacco - Burley, which is harvested and air-dried in open barns, and Dark-fired... a much darker green plant, with longer leaves that is harvested, hung in barns which can be tightly closed up, and smoked over a smoldering sawdust fire on sawmill slabs... everyone has their own special choice in woods... some prefer hickory sawdust, others fruitwood. <br />It's pretty alarming to the uninitiated to come upon one of those barns with smoke billowing out of cracks or roof vents... and sometimes they do burn to the ground...keeping that smoldering fire suppressed enough to smoke but not flame is an art.<br />Burley is destined for incorporation into cigarette/pipe tobacco; dark-fired goes into chewing tobacco - or, at least that's my understanding. Luckyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14679131681836019015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970975545475697571.post-1301748853950151202015-10-20T12:46:16.666-04:002015-10-20T12:46:16.666-04:00Interesting post. When I lived in Kentucky ('...Interesting post. When I lived in Kentucky ('76-'79) I knew several small tobacco farmers.. Their land had an allotment of tobacco that could be sold. If your allotment was, say, 1500 lbs, that was all you were allowed to sell. Of course, you could sell to other growers who, for some reason didn't make their allotment during a given year.<br /><br />Many of those small growers depended on their "tobacco money" to make ends meet. It was, at that time, the second largest cash crop in Kentucky. Marijuana being the first. Marijuana generated substantially more profit, but at much greater risk.<br /><br />Marlboro had a large cigarette making plant in Louisville, and plenty of folks worked at the plant. They tended to hire military dependents from Fort Knox, which was just down the road. One of the benefits of working a tthe Marlboro plant was that each employee could take one carton of cigarettes out the door every day, free of charge. During those days, a GI could buy a carton of cigarettes at the commissary for $5.00, but on a PFCs salary of about $600.00 per month, every dollar counted. I bought many cartons of cigarettes out of a GI's car trunk.Pawpawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14959820068377494313noreply@blogger.com