Tobacco Field

[Atticus Finch]

Just thought I'd share something that will likely soon be a thing of the past.

I'm not sure how many fellow loungers have ever seen a mature tobacco plant, but this is one. The size of the plant often surprises folks who have never seen one. Jackie and I went for a ride this evening and we stopped to take this photo about a mile from home. Tobacco is not as common in North Carolina as it was when I was a kid. Health concerns and the elimination of the subsidy system have combined to drastically reduce tobacco production in the Old North State. But there are small areas where it is still grown the way its been grown here for over three hundred years. I'm lucky enough to live in the middle of one such area.



AF

 

[HeyMoe]

What part of NC are you in? I go to Asheboro quite often.

 

[Atticus Finch]

What part of NC are you in? I go to Asheboro quite often.

Down on the coast...near New Bern.

AF

 

[Stanley Doble]

Here's how we do it in Canada. Believe it or not, we grow tobacco here too.

Stompin' Tom Connors expounds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqzgcAA8XzY

"Tillsonburg, Tillsonburg, my back still aches when I hear that word"

 

[Oldsarge]

I don't know if it's still the case but the finest cigar wrapping tobacco used to come from Connecticut. And out here in California we have a wild variety that you'd have to be in a crazed nicotine fit to smoke. Strong and rough? Man!

 

[1mach1]

Near Chase City, Va. where my Dad grew up.

 

[Old Rogue]

Although Atticus and I have never actually met in person, I also live in the New Bern area of eastern NC. My summers from about age 5 up through my late teens were spent working on local tobacco farms. It was hot, dirty work. But you were with your friends and some of my most cherished memories are of those days. We used a process called "flu-curing" to slowly dry the tobacco and ready it for market. It's been close to 40 years since I last worked on a tobacco farm, but I can still remember the pleasant (to me anyway) odor from inside a barn of almost-cured tobacco.

 

[Kirk H.]

Just thought I'd share something that will likely soon be a thing of the past.

I'm not sure how many fellow loungers have ever seen a mature tobacco plant, but this is one. The size of the plant often surprises folks who have never seen one. Jackie and I went for a ride this evening and we stopped to take this photo about a mile from home. Tobacco is not as common in North Carolina as it was when I was a kid. Health concerns and the elimination of the subsidy system have combined to drastically reduce tobacco production in the Old North State. But there are small areas where it is still grown the way its been grown here for over three hundred years. I'm lucky enough to live in the middle of one such area.



AF

As a resident of the Old North State it has been quite awhile since I have seen that. A lot of the land that was used for tobacco in this part of the state has been used now for winerys. I still see cotton fields especially when I get out of the Charlotte area and head to the foothills and mountains or go into upstate SC.

 

[SamSpade]

This thread seems to be the meeting place for North Carolina loungers, so I may as well pop in too. In the front and left of my house are a few fields with tobacco, they've just about put in most of the tobacco so you can see it going along the side of the road from Pikeville (Where I am) to Goldsboro. Goldsboro has become a slightly more "ghetto" area now, and most of the tobacco warehouses have shut down, others were damaged by Hazel back in '54. But this only furthers what Atticus was saying, people have grown to shy to the idea of smoking, though, in those days there were not as many chemical in the cigarettes. At least we still have cigars.