Harvesting and selling tobacco
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- Опубліковано 12 бер 2012
- This short documentary shows the process of harvesting, curing, and selling tobacco, from farm to auction. Filmed at Duke Homestead State Historic Site in Durham, North Carolina, during the 2009 Tobacco Harvest Festival.
Created by Daniel Lunk, 2009
Transcript: www.learnnc.org/lp/multimedia/...
Resources
Postwar North Carolina: Primary sources and readings explore the history of North Carolina and the United States during the postwar era (1945--1975). (Page 2.5) www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nc...
North Carolina History: A Sampler: A sample of the more than 800 pages of our digital textbook for North Carolina history, including background readings, various kinds of primary sources, and multimedia. Also includes an overview of the textbook and how to use it. (Page 8.9) www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nc...
I'm 72 and live in north eastern, N.C. I was topping tobacco and breaking of suckling at 8 or 9 years old. We had a A farmall tractor to pull the tobacco trailers that I also drove. Dad raised his crops just like they were. Wish kids today had to do work like that.
If children today had to help do hard manual labor like this, rather than play video games, the workforce would be far better!
I grew up in Eastern NC as well. In a small town called Lizard Lick. I loved riding around as a kid and enjoyed walking “sneaking” through the endless tobacco fields that where all around. Now the fields are grown up or the children that inherited these huge farms have sold out to developers. I wish I would have paid more attention to the old farmers growing up and showed some interest in this industry.
My kids spend 10 hours a day in the marijuana fields.
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@@pnwRC. I'm only 2 years old and I work 100 hours a week in a nuclear power plant, I wish more kids my age did that instead of playing video games
In Missouri we raised a burley tobacco. We cut the whole stalk and speared it on sticks with metal spears.Then we would hang it in the barn till it was dry.I believe the tobacco in the south is what they called flu cured. I was raised on tobacco my whole life.It was a lot of work but it was a big part of my life and I will never forget it. We started with horses and ended with a 8N Ford tractor.In Missouri it is a lost tradition.My dad said he was probably one of the last ones to buy a farm and raise a family raising tobacco.We grew about 12 to 15 acres for 35 or 40 years.As hard a work as it was it brings back a lot of very fond memories.
In Kentucky, when I helped my aunt & uncle harvest their tobacco farm, we also hung it on sticks to dry. The way they do it in this video seems like a LOT of extra work to harvest!
A lot of people did flu cured tobacco. Here in the piedmont of NC. "Bright leaf" We hand string the tobacco on to the sticks. And then we'd climb 25 or more feet up into the barn and hang it. But at least we had propane. Further back, they used wood. And many slept at the barn.
Yes that is the way we did it here in West Virginia. The way it was done in the video does seem like a lot of extra work. No heat in any of our barns. Just natural air drying.
@@pnwRC. The brightleaf made this way received a premium payout. It always demanded more money per pound.
@@Rick-wn5oh got it, thanks.
This is just so great. I'm a pipe smoker from Georgia so I grew up around people like this. Thanks for putting this video up.
I loved this! my family in East TN. Grew tobacco for generations I was having flashbacks lol but all over in East TN. Bought everyone's tobacco allotments now no one in my county or any that I know of grow tobacco at all anymore. It's sad really! But thanks for reviving wonderful old memorys of a simpler time
i could listen to these old boys talk about tobacco all day (im growing virginia)
Cuba red,Virginia gold and wild Indian Ontario
Brings back memories of being a teen in Florida.. One teen would get his truck and load up the back with all his friends who wanted to make a few dollars for a few hours work, helping each other out on their farms. Learned a lot and it's always good exercise.. We had a tobacco barn on our property, but we used it for the cows, horses and hog.
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God, I love this country. I don't smoke many virginias/old belt anymore, but tobacco helped to construct not only this country, but also the US's monetary infrastructure. Everything in moderation, folks. And tobacco is still, IMHO, one of America's finest crops.
Our finest crop IMO is timber.
Yea good comment by mcpip
Lived in TN and KY for like ten years. There's nothing on this earth that smells better than when they start smoking the tobacco at the end of the season in the barns! Miss that.
Well snack my momma. I wanna shake you're hand. A person from Kentucky and Tennessee. Well my God dam dream came alive.
We worked for all the local farmers when I was a kid cutting and housing tobacco or hauling in hay , for $1.10 hr, and lunch , which was a bologna sandwich and a drink , sometimes 12 hrs, a day , tobacco was the hardest of all farm work in the Tennessee, Kentucky area .
Lot of intense hard work but I think it builds character I like to think it did me anyway sure made me stronger than most kids my age I think it hardens u so from then on nothing stands in ur way people nowadays wouldn't want to muck out a stall of manure and hay sure doesn't smell good at first but like my grandpa told me and it's true u get used to it after a while
My uncle and family farmed tobacco in South Carolina back in 70-80s. I remember spending the Summer and they would dry it and put it in big giant burlap looking bags and take it to the market after drying.
Great video! Loved seeing how it was all done and hearing the farmers talking about their jobs and their products.
Such a pleasure to listen to someone who knows what he/she is about.
This is what my great grandfather did and my grandad grew up on in NC.
I tagged tobacco for RJ Reynolds and Export in 1978-1980. Those tobacco buyers were a bunch of hard headed flirts. Nothing in their minds but buying tobacco and young girls. Learned my lesson hard but I made him cry. Dog gone ya. How dare you. I will remember.
I'm getting on in years. I started pulling tobacco when I turned 13.I worked a tobacco farm until I was old enough to switch to cotton mills. To this day I remember going into the field and being drenched from the dew. But come 10am I was praying for more dew as the tobacco sap started building up. Always looked forward to a little rain shower.
Back then we use to call the mid day meal dinner. We'd be loaded up and brought back to the house and fed like kings. Corn bread, pinto bean, collard greens, fried chicken and ice tea. $0.85 an hour with a meal included. Good money for a teenager.
Yeah, by midday you get all sticky and gummed up. Hard as hell on the back also.
@@redstone1999 In 1982, at the age of 23, I decided to join the Navy. Because I was going in under a special program, I had about 7 months to await Boot Camp. Since I was starting to get a little soft, I decided to go back and work in tobacco for the summer. Then run every afternoon.
The short story is Boot Camp was a absolute breeze compared to farm work. I do have to admit, all the standing around in ranks was hard on my feet.
@@Rick-wn5oh There is a reason the military love recruiting farm guys and gals. And most can shoot like an expert marksman.
If you see a farm worker run, you better start running also. We do not run unless there is an emergency. LOL
@@redstone1999 Well I did manage to get my expert ribbon with the M1911A1 and the M-16. Not easy to do in the Navy. Good times.
@@Rick-wn5oh I joined the Navy in 81. Boot camp in Orlando.
Aah,took me back to high school in south stokes county NC,worked for our neighbors, in the harvest season,started early morning in the field, stopped for mid day supper, at the curing barn as the ladies and guys looped us younger guys hung the tobacco to cure the back home late afternoon. Our neighbor, had tractors, and if needed, some mules if due to mud, tractors couldn't get in the fields,learned alot that season, as I had always picked fruit in the west, in summer vacation. Our neighbors taught me alot, he farmed, and she was also the local primative, southern Baptist preacher. Vat south stokes high school, in spring last month of school year,farmer's children were usually absent due to re-planting the seedling process, and in 1st month of new school year ,they might still be harvesting. Ithis film brought back memories of how intensive and how skilled some farming can be. My new immigrant from eastern Europe in WW1, homesteaded in central Montana(sheep ranching), but I'll take my hat off to NC farmers.
My Grandparentswho had come to usa in 1914, and she in 1924
Primed tobacco in Whitakers NC in the 70's and early 80' Don;t miss it not one bit. Now I survey land and there has not been one day surveying that was tougher than putting in tobacco. After priming tobacco as a kid and teenager you cant show me hard work. It don't get much harder than in the 1st week of August when its 95 degrees outside and no breeze blowing. But i'm glad i went through it,because if you can do that you can do any kind of labor that requires you to be outside.
Like you said, if you can work in tobacco without passing out you can do anything
Did you ever pin a footer for a residential building, with internal and external corners, that had 150 corner points? We set up on every point and turned 90’s…set up on every point and every previous point to get zero. I would rather work tobacco than do that. You ever do a boundary survey and topo survey on a 600 acre property with heavy timber? I’m talking 50 property corners, wetlands, cutting line everywhere you go, and an elevation shots every 50 feet. I would rather work tobacco. I have HORROR STORIES from being Land Surveyor.
I grew up in Western Kentucky and I remember my papa putting me on the tobacco basket when he sold it. Spent several years helping him raise burley. Those were hard work days, but would do it again.
Primed tobacco for 5 or 6 dollars a day 60's a day was first light until the primed leaves were strung and housed in the curing barn. Farmer would usually feed you. At that time a pepsi cola was a nickel a hot dog a dime a gallon of gas 15 cents. A country song back then, I got five dollars and it's Saturday night. Not true now.
I have got a 90 dollars and it is saturday night...hahaha
Hey man I wish health and prosperity it seems we loosing our elders more than ever and we need as much as we also do..look how u jus painted the picture of an entire era with jus a few words.The elders are indeed our libraries.
Oh yes indeed. From Rockingham NC. A Hopper right here.
I always got stuck on the top rafters of the barn where all the heat was. Glass of milk and a bologna sandwich for lunch. 7am to dark till the field was cleared.
Man 100$ don't get ya far on a Saturday night now. Even if you stay home.
As to mules, they are very different from horses. You can train a horse. You have to come to an agreement with a mule :) Also a horse may kick you. A mule aims :)
HM Dickson.........My mom always said the way you deal with is you hit him across the forehead with a 2 by 4, then once you have his attention................
And he might wait ten years to get back at you LOL!! And when a mule was done working you were too but a mule was twice a worker then your normal horse.
@@markyegge644 She thought you were discussing your father. 😉
Actually, you whack em in the balls to make them listen.
Every single bit of wisdom in this thread is honest truth,gospel lol mules have big asses and bigger egos
Great video
Greets from The Netherlands.
Thanks for the great video. I came from a long family of "bacca" farmers. This brought back good memories. Mules, handing leaves, stringing, sleds. I was never around for the grading, tying, or warehouse experience, so really enjoyed that part.
I LIVED IN KENTUCKY IN THE EARLY 80's...I WORKED WITH SADDLEBRED SHOW, & BREEDING HORSES...THE GUY I WORKED FOR HIRED US OUT TO A TOBACCO FARMER...I SPENT THE DAY PUTTING STICKS OF TOBACCO UP ON A FLATBED...THEN HANDING STICKS UP IN THE DRYING SHED...I ALSO LEARNED HOW TO SORT LEAVES IN THE SORTING SHED AT NIGHT FROM MY FRIEND'S MOTHER...
I grew up in central North. Carolina, working in tobacco was how we made money for lots of things growing up. Mom and Dad didn’t give us spending money. I have worked in tobacco, worked in hay, mowed grass among other dirty jobs for money. When l grew up l raised 27 crops of tobacco on my father’s farm and worked a third shift job. My son worked on the farm as long as he was in school and college. Makes a difference growing up working.
I grow it to add to my compost, I get some banging nitrates.
Salt of the earth people, the kind you want for a neighbor!!
Both of my Grandfathers grew and in their words grew “Backer”. My brothers helped them hang it a few times!
Thank you so much for this video. There so much history here about growing and selling tobacco, that i sure didn't know. I've been chewing tobacco for years and grew up on a beef and hog farm in S.W. Michigan
As a little boy on my gramps farm i helped pick worms off the leaves. Grampa loved shoving them in my shirt pockets for the wash women to find.
We used those worms for cat fishing!!
Not all tobacco is harvested this way. The type grown in West Virginia and Kentucky it done by cutting the entire stalk. It is then put on a stick. Usually five stalks per stick. Those sticks of tobacco are then hung in a barn that has good air flow and allowed to "cure". When the stalk has turned brown the leaves are stripped and graded by color. They are then put in a plywood baler and baled. They are a little bigger than a hay bale. They are then sold in this form.
Tobacco always tasted the best before it went to the market, because who knows what the factories put in it intheir process
As a historian and cigar smoker, I found this video to be very interesting.
Beautiful piece of history.. Nice video
This was a very great and informative video, easy to watch, too! Thank you to all of you who helped make it, you taught me a lot :)
I used to help my grandfather and an uncle outside of Danville Virginia with their tobacco harvest when I was a young teenager I was a picker and then I was a passer and I was a Stringer. I used to top tobacco and pull suckered off too. And have to pick off those big ugly tobacco worms. Used to love my grandfather's kind, patient mule, Patsy, that pulled the tobacco slide and waited for us to tell her to move on up. At the end of the day I hated passing the sticks up to the men in the barn, that part was awful. My grandfather grew bright leaf tobacco, an ancestor had been instrumental in developing it, a Brumfeld from Gretna. Two of my uncle's grew up to work in the tobacco market. Great to see a video about tobacco and how it was harvested in NC and VA. The process was different in MD and PA where they spiked entire plants on sticks to hang to dry, so weird. I bet NC and VA had higher quality tobacco.
Awesome show,I've learned a ton,now back to babying my tobacci plants
Do you grow it for your own use? Of so, could you give a short explanation of how to do it? I want to start growing my own to use. Thank you for your time!
You may be killing me,. But thanks, none-the-less. I love my tobacco.
This was a great documentary :)
Grew up in southern Ontario,
Oh how my back aches when I hear that word ,Tillsonburgh.
I worked my last harvest in 63 south east of Courtland , that's between Tillsonburgh & Delhi. You haven't lived till you started priming at 7 am in a field wet from the dew , soaked in the morning cooked in the afternoon.
@@kenkent4718
Right,but back than you might have walked the fields.As a kid I remember going to the farm and watching the process.Horses and boats were still used back than in the sixties.We had the luxury of riding priming machines,back than still Last time I worked a tobacco field was in the late 70s..Ached from the priming n lifting. I also got to hang tobacco when the hanger didn't show up.It was a good way to earn money before school started.We were exempt from school until the harvest was done.If we had a job n proof of it.
Grew up in Asheville. Burley was handled a little different up in the hills. Huge business back in the day.
I cut timber in western NC for about 2 years & saw a whole lot of small tobacco fields way up away from highways & towns.
i grew up in eastern ky i worked in my uncle's fields it was the hardest work i ever done
Wonderful video, thank you for the post.
Thank you some great history there I would have never known
Great tunes - gotta love that.
great video,, love the information on tobacco farming along with the history ..
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Would probably make a really savoury Cesar salad. 🥗
A few tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet onions, croutons and one finely chopped ashtray. Serve in a brass spittoon. Good eating!!!
Thanks for sharing.... really informative
I always enjoyed going to the tobacco market when I was young with the family selling our tobacco. I worked at one when I was 18 back in the day and also hauled tobacco to and from the warehouse’s after I started my trucking career!! A old Kentucky boy!! The way we raised it was we cut the whole plant and put 6 plants on a stick in the field and brought to the barn to hang then we took it down and stripped it about the same way.
My family did it both ways but I preferred whole plant and sticks just seemed easier then it gradually dries and then gets graded my opinion and the smell of the markets was so heavenly for lack of a better word miss those times
This is awesome. Thank you.
Great video !
Appreciate it, My uncle raised Tobacco in NC.
My granddad raised 7 kids share cropping in 30/40/50. He was a stone cold southern boy !!!! Johnston /Sampson county nc. He put down water pumps. In his later years found streams of water with grape vine. Cold water my dad helped him on sat. I sat in old Ford truck. That’s my southern story!!!!
That was awesome
I am Cherokee paint clan and I know my Cherokee native ways in tobacco and why we use it for in men's native history and ways and I know women's ways too this come's from the beginning
boy we would love to see a clip of this explained by Cherokee!
Great video
love nc!
Not too much to love here.
I did this work .. From barn stripping room(ready for shipping after put into blocks and string tied ) then to Truck to take to market ...indiana
Kentucky here :) The bales would be put onto a wagon. I think they just sold the last of the tabacco warehouses in Cynthiana, KY on North 27 :(
amazing video
I remember that sound of the leaves being pulled we used horses and tractors those were the good old days in southern Virginia
The people is what made it good. It's never going back to how it was.
I watched this ten times I miss farming baccer and loose floors
Very good information
In the old days some horn worms would grow to be over 15 feet long and as big around as a VW bug. No pun intended. Sometimes the worms would eat the mules and the entire crop. Anyone who tried to tell the local authorities about the giant worms would be eaten or taken to the worm queen to be reprogrammed. Aside from those problems which ended a long time ago, everything was just the way the lady says. As Tobacco farmers, we don't like to talk about the big worms, because people look at us funny, and although we're pretty sure the worm queen left in that flying saucer, back in the 40s, leaving only tiny worms. we still don't want to take a chance that she'll hear. I suppose I'm taking a risk, just posting this.
The gvt and lawyers don’t wish tobacco to go away. Sin tax and class action to be made! Keep voting for career politicians, they are your friend
Very good vidio, i learned a bunch
Great Video Thanks My grandfather in Georgia grew tobacco some years. I recall them using a team of folks using a massy tractor pulling a trailer device with people at different levels and stringing the leaves on a long stick for stacking in the tobacco barn, Then they were stored in the tobacco barn it was very tall hand had gas burners around the dirt floor. I remember going to the auction where the tobacco companies tested the leaves by taking a sample and burning it and also some tasted it.
Before there were gas burners on the floor of the barn, we had to stay up all night burning wood at the right temperature to cure out the baccer.
@@donarthiazi2443 A real pal of mine grew up doing that, keeping the fires going at night in the barns in Georgia. That's where he learned to play a French harp. He could blow a blue note as long as your arm!
@@lewiemcneely9143
He must be getting on in years. I remember the market in Georgia opened earlier than in North and South Carolina so when money was tight, which was often, 😄 we would put the cured-out sand lugs on a train to sell down there.
@@donarthiazi2443 Got to eat and pay the light bill.
@@lewiemcneely9143
I understand that. But if you read my first post there's a clue in it about the light bill.
They didn't have electricity in those days. Or at least the folks that lived on farms in the rural areas had no power. They had outhouses and night-jars though lol.
Seriously, back in those days being a share-cropper was only 1 rung above slavery. I don't like using slavery as a comparison though because it seems to kinda make light of how bad it was.
But it's true that share-croppers were absolutely destitute back then.
Good info.
We bailed it up into bales for the market. Y’all must do it different. Southwest, Va here.
Yeap, my friend in Cynthiana, KY bailed it up into bales. I remember stripping it and then a big bunch of leaves (sorry, I don't remember much about it) would be layed into some contraption that had twine running through it. We'd pull down a handle, I think, and it would in ratchet fashion tighten up the bale. At some point we'd tie off the bale and drop down the wall in front (maybe we pulled the wall out?) and then push the bale over. I miss those times :(
Brilliant
I so wish I could buy tobacco like this online!
how long after you string the tabacco is it ready? and is it easy to make snuff or snus from tabacco?
Greetings. A quick question for you. Have you had experience smoking the leaves toward the top of the stalk versus those at the bottom? If so, is there any real difference in taste quality? I'm trying to decide if I am going to separate my leaves according to whether they're from the top or bottom of the stalk before fermenting and eventually smoking them. All leaves will be used as pipe tobacco. Thanks for any guidance.
okay so I can actually answer this really quick, so basically the big top leaves will have the most nicotine and be of the highest grade. But also, in the case of dokha pipe tobacco the conditions in which its grown, the way its cured, and the different sections of the leaf also contribute to nicotine content. For example, dokha pipe tobacco is grown in the desert, abused by the heat, and only watered enough to keep it alive. And what this process does is it causes the tobacco plant to produce excessive amounts of nicotine. Also, dokha pipe tobacco is cured in a shaded shed and harvested when the leaves are light green instead of yellow. And what this does is it preserves as much of the nicotine as possible which is why dokha pipe tobacco is so potent. On top of this different sections of the leaf have different concentrations of nicotine for example, the very top of the leaf has the least amount of nicotine, the middle of the leaf is a little stronger and the bottom of the leaf has the highest concentration of nicotine. This is why dokha pipe tobacco comes in different strengths known as cold, warm, and hot which refers to both the nicotine content and how harsh the smoke is.
We used three stages to cure. Low heat no air to yellow once it’s the desired color would raise the heat to dry once the leaf is dry raise the heat again to kill it out this dries out the stems 😁
It's funny that people are willing to grow their own pot, but not their own tobacco.
With the price of cigarettes it seems like a no brainer. I’ve seen Amish growing it as far north as Lancaster PA. I’d grow it, but it took me 15 years to kick nicotine. I’ll never touch it again.
WOWZERS! When I helped my aunt & uncle harvest their tobacco in Kentucky we did it a lot differently! We'd cut the entire plant, then hang the individual stalks on the sticks to be dried in the barns. After it was dried, we'd then grade it, & bale the leaves. Either way it's very labor intensive! It just seems to me that the way these folks do it is far more labor intensive.
We were going for a much higher quality of tobacco. More money per pound.
@@Rick-wn5oh If it pays better it may be worth all the extra efforts
Good video :)
Damn interesting 😊
Me and my dad grow tobaco in Kentucky and we are looking for a video of how to use tobaco baskets (not house whife b.s. ) if anyone has a link I would like to see it thanks
It’s the number 1 killer crop
WHO CARES , you can not protect someone from themselves .
Or maybe sugar. All that diabetes out there. Or maybe barley. Alcohol can mess you up.
Danville Va. My hometown was called The World's Best Tobacco Market.
Hahaha at 3:46 I thought at first that à tree was falling on him 😄😄
I live in Michigan I'm gonna start growing tobacco in about 2 weeks when my seeds come in any advice?
The lady is using the same method as i used back in Pakistan. Nice to see
"You're just damaging a piece of property if you just beat 'em" lol Anyone else see the irony?
After grading and tying the tobacco was placed on grading sticks that were slick so the tobacco would slide off to go on the baskets at the warehouse. You didn't have to accept the price wrote on the ticket. You culd just turn the tag. That meant the seller did not agree to the price and could then take the tobbaco back home and wait for better prices. Also, there were sleds as shown in the video. There were also those with wheels. Those latter ones were called "tobacco trucks" owing th the trudk swivel of the front wheels. Just a few points of interest. Thanks for the video.
Wowwwww
Where can I get this tob twine I am making a bed spread and I need some twine and I need to know where I can buy it.
At the end of tobacco season in NC all of the farmers I worked for would have a Carolina BBQ dinner for everybody that worked that season.
We used to go to my grandparents farm at harvest time and pull bacca every summer. I never heard them call it tobacco . It was a good experience but ;it was hard hot work I doubt many kids could handle it . The wax from the leaf’s was better than any hair spray lol . And we would get paid after the bacca money came in.
Every time I eat a red delicious apple now it tastes bland. Kind of miss the bitter flavor that the tobacco gum added to it.
that dude is so cool
I need seeds
I want to know what the breakdown is. Like if a pile of tobacco sold for 1.65, how much goes to the farmers, warehouse, auctioneers, etc?
лист ферментируется в кипах во время сушки на шесте?
I loved smoking cigarettes but I gave it up. 20 years ago. Maybe more. But women hard hardly ever quit a woman wont quit like a man
harvest orignal flavour n mint tobacco nice...
Imagine finding a jug if moonshine under the pile of tobacco you won at the tobacco auction
I've picked a many sucker off my grandfather's tobacco plandt
Now i know how the classic show Hee-Haw 3:28 got it name! it only took me 50 years :)
So interesting, a ventriloquist could cause some mischief!
How do you increase the heat in the barn?
We used gas heaters
You add fuel to the fire. A century ago the curing was done by way of large rock-and-mud or rock-and-concrete furnaces in the barn, which burned wood. Tin or aluminum flues around the inside the barn moved the heat to all corners. More wood, more heat. In my childhood, the farmers where I grew up converted from wood to small steel or iron burners inside the barn that burned heating oil, but still circulated the heat through the same flue system. My father had one barn that burned coal stoked into the furnace.
Lol. Do the flowers draw nutrients away from the leaves, or do they give the farmer the ability to not buy seeds next year?