[AT] Grain Augers--Long

[john hall]

Now that's a country TV station if there ever was one!

John Hall

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "charlie hill" <charliehill at embarqmail.com>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 01, 2012 8:27 AM
Subject: Re: [AT] Grain Augers--Long


> Al,  if I remember right my dad wanted to have his tobacco "layed by" 
> (last
> plowing because of it's size) by the first of June and normally started to
> harvest by the first week in July.  July 4th was NOT a holiday we often
> celebrated!   The harvest typically took 6 weeks and the old guys would 
> tell
> you if you didn't have your crop out of the field by mid August "the worms
> would eat it up".   Even though we had DDT and some other strong 
> pesticides
> back then,  tobacco worms and other bug pests seemed to be a worse problem
> back then than they are now.  Maybe it's just because I'm not on the farm 
> to
> see it now.   I bet you don't remember when a guy named "Eck" Wall did a
> daily tobacco report on channel 9.  He reported total sales volume in
> Greenville and other surrounding market towns, the sales volume and 
> average
> sales price and he'd usually have a bunch (bundle) of tobacco from the
> highest sale price pile in the Greenville market (that was in the days 
> when
> tobacco was still graded and tied in bunches with a wrapper leaf).  He had 
> a
> clothes line in the TV Studio and he'd say "and you can hang that one on 
> the
> line!" as he put the record sale price bundle over the line.  For those 
> that
> have never seen it, the bunch of leaves were separated apart in the middle
> and put over the string with the stems, tied by the wrapper leaf, hanging
> over the top of the line so that it sat there much like an old fashion
> wooden clothes pin.  By the end of the season he'd have tobacco bunches 
> half
> way across the set on "the line".   Back then there were almost NO
> industrial jobs in eastern NC.   The few industrial plants we had were
> either tobacco processing or other farm related industries.   Tobacco was
> KING and everyone knew it.   A tobacco farmer was respected as a community
> leader much the same way as a small business owner is now.
>
> Charlie
>
>
>