[AT] History Exam, now kid memories

Mon Jun 18 05:39:16 PDT 2007

Farmer you are a little off base on little tractors to farm tobacco.  I know 
that is still the case in the Burley belt, etc.  Down here in Flue Curred 
country the small tractors went by the wayside a LONG time ago.  If a 
tobacco farmer in eastern NC has a tractor smaller than 75 HP now a days he 
uses it to mow his yard.

When I was a boy an average tobacco crop was between 3 and 12 acres.  That 
was enough to support a family.  By the time I was in high school it was 15 
to 25 acres.  Then in the late 70's the sucessful tobacco farmers were in 
the 50 to 100 acre range.  In the early 80's a guy that leased our place had 
over 1000 acres spread across 4 counties plus probably 10 to 15 thousand 
acres of row crop land that came along with the tobacco leases.   He was the 
extreme case and he went bankrupt a few years later but you see the trend.

Since the program ended a couple of years ago tobacco is now grown on 
contract with the seperate tobacco companies.  Now there are even fewer 
farmers tending more tobacco acres and less row crop acres because the end 
of the program allowed consolidation of the tobacco into larger fields on 
fewer farms.   Every year a few more growers give it up as the companies 
force the contract price down.   Last year the guy that was probably the 
largest in eastern NC gave it up.  I think his operation was in Nash or 
Edgecombe county (probably both).  I don't know how much tobacco he was 
farming (over 1000 acres I'm sure) but when they sold his stuff just the 
pickup trucks numbered in the dozens.

50 years ago when I was a small boy probably half of the families I knew 
grew tobacco.  As of this year  I think there are only about half a dozen 
tobacco farmers left in this county and I don't think I know any of them 
personally.  Tobacco has gone from being handled with great care, literally 
by hand, to being mechanically harvested, pitch forked and stomped on.

You are right.  There are some alternate uses for tobacco.  It is a very 
fast growing, prolific source for vegetable protien.  Unfortunately there 
are presently no major users for those reasons.
An acre will produce 3000 lbs or more.  It doesn't take many acres to 
support all of the alternate uses ..... if there even are any at this point.

Over in the area where John Hall is I believe the farms are still smaller 
and more guys are still growning tobacco but I suspect John will agree that 
the future is uncertain for the guys still in the business.

Oh by the way.  A friend of mine is a USDA tobacco grader.  He tells me that 
some companies are springing up that plan to farm tobacco in Texas where 
they can grow two crops a year.  If that happens the only possible reason 
the companies will have to buy NC tobacco is that we are closer to the 
manufacturing plants which are mostly in central NC and the Richmond Va 
area.

I was on the Hawaiian Island of Kawaii in late October 4 years ago and at 
the very end of the road that goes around the west shore toward the north I 
found about 100 acres of tobacco, in various stages of growth, planted in 
test plot size parcels.  There were no signs other than keep out.  I still 
don't know what that was about.

Charlie
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Francis Robinson" <robinson at svs.net>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2007 3:14 PM
Subject: Re: [AT] History Exam, now kid memories

> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "charlie hill" <chill8 at suddenlink.net>
>
>>I agree with you Ron.  I have mixed feelings about the tobacco business.
>> When I was a child it was an honorable profession. Tobacco was the
>> economic
>> engine that built this area of the country but it was a hard way to make 
>> a
>> living.  Then we came to find out it was killing people but by that point
>> everyone was so far into it that there was very little way out.  Our 
>> farms
>> are not all that well suited to other types of crops and back in the day
>> there were no other jobs to amount to anything.  Thankfully that has
>> changed.
>>
>> I'm nostalgic about my youth on a tobacco farm.  I'm proud of my 
>> heritage,
>> having come from generations of tobacco farmers on both sides.
>>
>> The guy that farms the place now sold all of his tobacco equipment this
>> spring.  This year is the first year that our farm is not being farmed by
>> a
>> tobacco farmer and one of only a handful of years that no tobacco was
>> planted on it for well over 100 years.
>> It's sad in a way but I'm happy to be out of the tobacco business ....
>> finally.
>>
>> Charlie
>
>
>
>
>
>    There is no reason to not be proud of a background in a profession that
> was fully honorable at the time. Many of my ancestors were tobacco 
> planters
> from the time they arrived in Virginia about 1666. Tobacco was one of the
> largest reasons this country was settled as fast as it was. I have a great
> grandfather of another line that is buried in NC. I understand many of his
> ancestors were tobacco growers. As you and I (and many others on this 
> list)
> were growing up it was only thought that young people still growing should
> not smoke because it could stunt your growth. Actually compared to the 
> rest
> of the history of the world the move away from tobacco production and
> smoking especially around other people has transpired pretty fast once the
> knowledge of the risk became evident. I don't have to go very far south to
> hit tobacco plots even here in Indiana and The farm show at the KY state
> fair grounds is full of tobacco related booths.
>    My big wish for the tobacco growing areas is that they find enough 
> other
> uses for a fairly useful plant to keep the bulk of the tobacco growers and
> the other workers and handlers of the product in business and employed. I
> have read of several fairly recent kind of promising developments for 
> other
> uses. I'm sure they have only scratched the surface of the uses. Maybe it
> can be incorporated into some kind of fuel product. Hey... it burns... 
> ;-)
> I know that genetically it is a very flexible plant.
>    For many years a lot of restaurants stuck a tiny non-smoking area clear
> in the back and put all of the smokers right up around the food. I never
> cared for the taste of tobacco on my food (and I used to be a smoker) and
> always thought that was really silly. Here now most cities have full 
> smoking
> bans in places like restaurants etc. but I thought that was kind of
> over-kill. I always felt that if a smoking area was away from the food and
> had an ample exhaust fan to keep any smoke out of the rest of the place 
> that
> I didn't care if folks smoked there. Now of course just labeling one side 
> of
> a place as smoking and the other as non-smoking doesn't cut it. You have 
> to
> contain and remove the smoke.
>    Getting back on topic... If there was a great new tobacco product that
> would support the market just think of how many great new little tractors
> there are out there now to grow it with...   ;-)
>
>
> --
> "farmer"
>
> Francis Robinson
> Central Indiana, USA
> robinson at svs.net
>
>
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