[AT] Tobacco lathes and Charity Sneak Peak

[charlie hill]

Spencer,  I'll try to elaborate on tobacco farming a bit if others are 
interested.  I don't have time to get into it this morning but believe me I 
am happy for the oportunity to talk about it.  When I was a child tobacco 
farming was looked upon as an honorable profession.
Today it is much maligned and in some circles looked down upon.
All I can tell you is that if you ever find yourself in Duke University 
Hospital or if you proudly send your child off to school at Duke, you can 
thank tobacco for it.   Well for that matter you can add NC State, Wake 
Forrest, Clemson and East Carolina Universities to that list.

I can't imagine tobacco stalks being used as sticks.  They must have saved 
them from the previous years crop and dried them.   Burley tobacco is (or 
was ) generally havested all at one time by cutting the stalk off with the 
leaves still attached ( I think I'm correct about that).  Flue cured tobacco 
is harvested from the bottom of the plant up, a few (2 to 4 ) leaves at a 
time so the stalk is not available until the whole crop is harvested.  I 
guess if properly dried a stalk might make a fair stick but in our barns 
down east I can't believe they were ever used.   Here is why.  I've been in 
tobacco barns well over 100 years old ( or they would be today if they were 
still there).
The basic design never changed from the very old log barns until the early 
'70's and the comming of modern bulk barns.   A typical barn consists of 4 
or 5 "rooms"   A "room" is about 4 feet wide and is defined by having a 
"tier pole" on each side.  These tier poles were originally logs and latter 
pine timbers that reached from one end of the barn to the other much like a 
coat hanger rod in a closet.   A typical tobacco barn was 20 feet long and 
either 16 or 20 feet wide depending on it being a 4 or 6 room barn. ( There 
were some 6 and 8 room barns but they were very rare. )   The tier poles are 
there to support the ends of the tobacco sticks.  Each "room" shares the 
tier poles of the room next to it.   I said ploes in the plural because 
their are usually at least 6 tier poles to a room.  They are aranged 
directly above each other with the first one being about head high above the 
floor with the 2nd one about 3 feet higher and so on to the top.

With that arangement being standard for all tobacco barns (at least in 
eastern NC and SC) all tobacco sticks would have to be a standard length and 
have a minimum strength.   A tobacco stalk might be over 4 feet long but the 
butt end of it would be 1 1/2 to 2 inch diameter and the tip end would be 
about 1/2 to 1 inch diameter and probably wouldn't be strong enough to 
support hanging wet tobacco.   My guess is that if your  source is correct 
then they had a different type of barn than we used.

More later if anyone  wants to hear.

Gotta go to work now.

Charlie


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Spencer Yost" <yostsw at atis.net>
To: <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Sunday, October 03, 2004 10:10 PM
Subject: Re[2]: [AT] Tobacco lathes and Charity Sneak Peak


> *********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********
>
> On 10/3/2004 at 9:23 PM charlie hill wrote:
>
>>Hi Spencer,  I enjoyed looking at the art work.   The tobacco them stuff
>>is
>>my heritage.   There is nothing in those pictures that I haven't done.
>>Down
>>East (NC) we called them tobacco sticks, the same as the artist does in
>>one
>
> You ought to post a a couple of messages outlining your experiences.  I
> promise you most folks on this list don't have a clue abut tobacco 
> farming.
> The few that do probably know things from the burley end of things and not
> flue cure.   What you know and did is _rapidly_ disappearing.   I have 
> just
> been around it.   I've never done it.  Now its' just migrant labor and big
> gas fired bulk barns that "cure"("Dry" is more accurate).
>
> Here is what an elderly neighbor told me.  Only in the 1950s(or did he say
> after WWII??  I can't remember) did his family start using wood stringers.
> They used the tobacco stalks before that and those were called "tobacco
> sticks".  I guess in many areas the wood substitutes were called sticks
> too.  Apparently around here though there was a distinction.  You cured 
> the
> tobacco on "sticks" if you used the stalk, or you used "stringers" if you
> used wood.    I know the nomenclature varies quite a bit from area to area
> - even family to family.  If you are hungry for the nostalgia, come to the
> Dixie Classic Fair this week.  They always have a wood fired, flue cure
> tobacco barn operating all week.
>
> http://www.dixieclassicfair.com/
>
> PS:  To all:  The fair is huge and second only to the NC State Fair(about
> 300,000 attending each year).  Well worth the drive if you like fairs.  If
> you come Thur 10-7, eat dinner at the Vienna Civic club food booth and say
> "Hi!" to me(volunteering to flip burgers as I do most years).  Be sure to
> see the "YesterYear Village" to see the flue cure barn.
>
> Spencer Yost
> Owner, ATIS
> Plow the Net!
> http://www.atis.net
>
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