[AT] Tobacco harvesting

[charlie hill]

Hi Larry,  the barns you are looking at in Kentucky are probably air dried 
tobacco barns where as ours here are "flue curred".  The process is slightly 
different but the sticks are likely similar.   When I came along most barns 
were "fired" with either oil or gas burners inside the barn.  We had one log 
barn that was still wood fired by brick fire boxes in 2 sides of the barn 
but I can't remember seeing it used that way.  My dad converted it to oil 
burners when I was a little fellow.   The old fire boxes were still there 
but had been bricked up when I was old enough to be involved.  Unfortunately 
that barn came into disrepair and fell down.  It is long since gone.
It is nice to preserve those old things and I'd love to have it back as well 
as our "pack house" (barn that stored the dried tobacco while it was being 
prepared for market) that fell about 5 years ago.  Unfortunately it takes a 
lot of money to keep up things you don't need.  The pack house was well over 
100 years old and was originally a cotton gin building.

Charlie

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Larry D. Goss" <rlgoss at evansville.net>
To: "'Antique tractor email discussion group'" 
<at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Monday, October 04, 2004 10:07 AM
Subject: RE: [AT] Tobacco harvesting


> Charlie -- Spencer -- What you're saying in this thread kind of
> surprises me.  Maybe it shouldn't.  For heaven's sake, I'm not exactly
> "in the loop" on tobacco farming.  I never did it, I've only watched it.
> But I still see the old style barns being used in western Kentucky with
> the tiers of sticks arranged all the way from the roof to the ground and
> with the tall slender doors along all sides to let air circulate.  Most
> of them are painted black, and they don't even say, "See Rock City."
> :-)
>
> But I am probably located on the fringe of the growing area and they may
> be growing a special variety where they can still afford to do it the
> old-fashioned way.
>
> FWIW, I have a distant cousin who owns and lives on an antebellum
> plantation on Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.  When I visited with him
> several years ago, he was in the process of "preserving" the tobacco
> barn that's out behind the house.  It has not been modified and still
> has all the notches in place on the beams and he still has a large
> collection of sticks to fit.  The only strange thing about it is that
> it's painted white.
>
> Larry
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com
> [mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of Spencer Yost
> Sent: Monday, October 04, 2004 7:32 AM
> To: at at lists.antique-tractor.com
> Subject: [AT] Tobacco harvesting
>
>>Hi gang,   I don't know where the construction of that sentence above
> came
>
>>from.  I can't believe I actually wrote it that way.
>
> Hey Charlie,
>
> I didn't even notice it when I quoted it.   You probably could have kept
> quiet and no one would have been the wiser (-;
>
>>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
>
> No, they picked it the same way, and I am sure the sticks were left over
> from the previous year.  They didn't cut the stalk with the leaves.
>
> My source for the tobacco sticks story was my neighbor, who died this
> past
> spring and raised tobacco and other crops on my property in the barns
> and
> buildings that I now own(or I at least own the foundations that are left
> (-; ).  Another great source of information gone.  He was my haying
> buddy
> and helped tremendously,  As to the sticks, I am quite sure because he
> mentioned it on several occasions.  I couldn't tell you the details as
> to
> how he did it, though I am left with the impression there was another
> set
> of small poles that latter evolved into dimension lumber (and what I
> think
> others are calling lathes) that crossed the tier poles.  The sticks, or
> stringers, sat on these and therefore the distance was smaller.
>
> Again though, his story was the sticks were abandoned and stringers were
> used solely by WWII/1950s.  Also, I have heard the stick thing from
> others.
> I'll ask around and see if I got my facts straight.
>
> Spencer Yost
> Owner, ATIS
> Plow the Net!
> http://www.atis.net
>
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