A draft from the book: Promise of Better Days, A Farm Boy's Odyssey Through North Carolina'a "Tobacco Way of Life"
Chapter
7
Growing up on a tobacco farm during the 1940s, '50s, and
later was an exercise in work ethic and personal disciplines for all farm
family members. Preparation to raise the bright leaf began before the previous
crop was completed: Deciding which fields to plant, maintaining a good crops
rotation plan, taking soil samples (first tested in NC,
1940), meeting with Agriculture Extension
Service, e.g., to learn to treat nematode soil infestation and attending Farm
Bureau meetings to be informed on allocation and price-control issues. Followed
by these activities were preparation for seed plant beds, land preparation,
transplanting and cultivation, topping blossoms and suckering the plant, to the
exhaustive summer harvest, culminating in the tedious fall grading and tying
tobacco bundles for the auction market.
"Baccer,"
the short pronunciation in many old-timers’ jargon began with: "My baccer" is the best crop; my baccer needs rain; my baccer needs extra soda, etc. Around
the country stores and church gatherings tobacco seemed to always be the main
topic, only subjugated to concerns of Mother Nature. Even then it related to
tobacco: would a drought or too much rain ruin the crop?
When
the crop matured, ripened, ready to crop, necessities had been readied: cords
of wood fuel had already been cut and stacked in time to dry (in later years
oil tanks were filled); tobacco slides (or factory wheeled carts, if by choice
and affordable) and tie-horses were repaired or built (I loved the building
part.); rough hewn/split or mill-sawed tobacco sticks, slick (smoothed) grading
sticks, good cotton-tying thread (twine), and the furnace or curing burners
were all checked and made ready to use.
Having
the tobacco barn ready for barning day also was essential. Any storm damage
since last season or re-plastering of chinks between logs of barn walls had to
be taken care of. Sometimes the farmer needed to build a barn and over the
earlier decades, different farmers/areas had their own ideas about building a
curing barn. Just before the turn of the 20thcentury, in Johnston County NC,
the local Smithfield Herald newspaper, in promotion of tobacco, rendered some
ideas for a barn. An early February 1899 issue, printed an article which
prescribed how a tobacco barn should or may be built: "TOBACCO BARNS IN
JOHNSTON COUNTY - People differ as to the size to build barns. Sixteen or
eighteen feet square are good sizes. A barn 16 x 18 feet is a favorite size
with many:
Barns can be built with logs
or planks. If planks are used they should be doubled. If logs are used, select
as straight as possible, from six to eight inches in diameter. It will take
from eighty to eighty-four logs to make a barn the proper height. Cover with
boards or shingles; of course, shingles make the best cover, but board roofs
will cure the best in warm weather. Most farmers prefer board roofs as giving
best results. Chink the cracks thoroughly with wood and mortar. It is best to
use lime mixed with clay, as it will save the expense of dobbing over every
year. Make the barn as nearly airtight as possible. Put the first set of tiers
about seven feet from the ground. If the logs are large, put in tiers for every
three logs; if small, skip four; nail on to the rafters until you reach the
top. Put door in south side, if possible. You may put a window in both or one
of the gable ends. If you use a double furnace, put arches on one end; make them
of brick. Extend arches out eight feet inside, one or two feet on the outside.
Twelve-inch piping is as good a size as you can use. If you use a single
furnace put one in the center of one end of the barn, and let the brick work
extend to within a foot and a half of the other wall."
The
traditional tobacco
barn through the first half 20th century varied
in structure, some of which I frequented and hang tobacco in. At times I felt
uneasy standing on the "slick, round-log tier-poles" straddling the
rooms of the "old log barns" -- as opposed to the newer barns with
"blunted-edge tiers" strengthened with a spacer nailed between two
rough sawn 1x4 boards.
The
first drying system used wood or coal to fire the masonry/brick furnace. Most
all farmers in our area used wood because trees could be cut off the farm
without having a cash expense. Coal was an unaffordable cost for most.
The
typical barn built into the early 20th century was a log-barn that had one furnace, running about two-thirds the way
into the barn, which connected with large
black 12" flue pipes, from which the name "flue-cured
tobacco" came. Usually the flue
pipes connected to each side of the furnace and each traversed half the
barn's perimeter, looping back to join at the front side of furnace. Joined at
the connecting tee, it exited the wall outside above the furnace's fire-stoking
door and then rose vertically to vent the combustion products near the roof's
peak. It was not common in our area, but some barns did have twin furnaces with
their separate flue systems.
In
later years some barns were built of cinder-block or tile construction; some
were wood framed, walls of edge-to-edge boards covered with tarpaper or asphalt
sheathing with seams held by vertical wood slats. Many barns were built with
overlapping wood board (we called it "weather boarding")
construction, such as my daddy built about 1938. Most barns had four rooms;
however, a farmer whose acreage production was slightly above a 4-room curing capacity
might build a 5-room barn. A 'room' had 'tiers' horizontally 45 inches apart
with about 20- to-24 inches vertically between them. The barns were 6 to 8
tiers high with maybe a couple of gable tiers, depending on steepness of the
roof. Usually the stick-tied green leaf was hung in the gable only if the barn
was to be fully loaded after a heavy cropping.
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Cutting
the firewood in the olden days required a lot of physical work, for it was cut
with a two-man crosscut saw and axe, assisted by wood and/or steel wedges and a
heavy mallet. (In 1929 Andreas Stihl had patented the
first gasoline-powered chainsaw for woodcutting. Only several years later was
it commercially available or affordable.)
I
have memory of the early forties when I was with my Daddy in the woods cutting
trees. Of course I wasn't much help with the "push and pull" saw,
until I grew older. I did, however, at an early age learn the rhythm of the
two-man crosscut saw, stabilizing the handle on one end as Daddy did the
"push and pull" all by himself. Fortunately, by about 1945 he removed
the masonry wood-burning furnace and put in a Florence Mayo wick-type kerosene
curer, to become a tobacco-curing customer of Smithfield Oil Company.
Drying
systems would go to kerosene-fueled
burners during the 1940s. Pot-type kerosene burners probably were most commonly
used. Bill Long, later Long Mfg., Co., invented the Buckeye in the early 1940s.
Later during WWII he invented the Silent Flame. By 1947 only half the barns of
NC cured with wood, 41% used oil and 9% used coal.[1]
Some later brands were Hardy Newsome (La Grange, NC) and Tharrington (Rocky
Mount, NC). Pot-type burners were placed in each corner. For a 5-room barn an additional
burner was placed in center.
The
other type of kerosene tobacco curer, as my Daddy first used, was the wick-type
manufactured by Florence-Mayo
Company. The Henry Vann Company of Clinton, NC
also manufactured a wick-type, which was the first curer used by my Uncle Earl
Westbrook. These systems had six individual small burners under a lineal hood
placed in each quadrant of the barn. Essentially they were the same kerosene
burner as used in some of the earlier kerosene home cook stoves, such as that
on which my Aunt Melvia Westbrook cooked. They were very efficient, burned less
oil than the pot burner, but required dutiful maintenance. Seasonally, or even
sometimes after one curing, the individual burners had to be cleaned and wicks
trimmed or replaced. Since they had no vent pipe, they could easily smoke a
barn of tobacco. Now it was a tough job getting soot off a barn full of cured
tobacco leaves. But if it happened, the sooted tobacco was usually isolated to
an area just over the one or two smoking burners. Smoke-soot tobacco would not
sell. It seems like I remember some farmers spraying it with vinegar or other
product to conceal or neutralize the sooty smell.
Many
hardware stores, such as Farmers Hardware in Smithfield, sold and installed
tobacco curers. In the early 1960s, at Smithfield Oil and Gin Company, I sold
some of the pot-type kerosene tobacco curers. These were usually Hardy-Newsome
which we picked up at LaGrange or the Silent Flames that were delivered by
Smith Hardware Company out of Goldsboro.
Winters
were busy with home heating fuel; spring was busy with delivery of gasoline and
#2 fuel oil for farm tractors, gasoline for pickup trucks, and farm-family
cars. By late spring as tobacco barning time was approaching, I had some time
to get out of the office. It was not to play golf but to install these tobacco
curers. After a long winter in the office, I enjoyed working outside. It was
pleasurable work like being back on the farm.
With Graham Adams' help or another person's
assistance, we would set the burner and run the copper oil lines; climb the
tiers and install the flue pipes which exited each corner of the barn. From a
ladder outside we'd cut a round hole about three inches larger than the vent
pipe and mount the cone over the hole for the 6" flue pipe to exit; we'd
seal it with roof cement and secure the vent cap.
Needless
to say, this was not high technology. But it was more physical exercise than
playing golf or fishing. It was another way for the company to make a few extra
dollars, but more importantly it meant selling oil and sometimes gaining a new
oil customer. The boss liked that, except usually it added more "accounts
receivable" on the books, which would not be paid until the fall. However,
J. Marvin Johnson, known for his salty language at times, always said,
"Tobacco is usually a dependable crop for account settlement but never
have I ever received a g-d payment by promise of 'I will pay you when I sell my
hogs.'" He was remembering on occasions when a farmer had sold his entire
tobacco crop and not yet paid his curing oil and gasoline account, at which
time the farmer promised, "I'll pay you when I sell my hogs." But
payment never came.
The
#2- fuel-oil-jets-itemizing tobacco curers first appeared in the '50s and by
the late '60s were the most prominent of curers sold for as long as
conventional barns were used. The high BTU burner, covered by hooded heat
spreader, was placed in center of the barn. It usually had 7" flue pipes
extending to the four-corners and adjacent sidewalls of the barn. Some of the
most popular brands were Tharrington, Florence-Mayo (which had rectangular
flues), and Anchor. I sold a few of these, also. These were the same type
burners as were used for central home heating, forced air or boiler hydronics
of that era. It was before the electric heat pump and propane gas became more
popular in rural and city areas.
Additionally, during this period propane-gas
or natural gas fired curers, such as the GasTobac
brand, was becoming the farmer's favored system. Typically, they were nine (9)
or more manifold burners evenly spaced in the barn. Growing in much popularity
at that time, I sold many of these drying systems in the late 1960s. By this
time, our addition of propane fuel sales made for a busier pace around the
plant. Our crews were going full-speed forward installing GasTobac and Tharrington
brands of propane curers. Propane overtook kerosene and fuel oil, and over the
years it has remained the most used fuel for drying tobacco.
The
4-step tobacco curing process ran from 5 to 7 days, usually depending on how
densely the barn was loaded: (1) yellowing, a barn temperature of about 110 degrees;
(2) setting the color, 120 degrees; (3) leaf drying, 135-150; (4) stem drying,
165-180. These steps varied in timing and temperature with different farmers
who had their own idea about how to cure each individual cropping. It was an
art that was discussed between farmers. It was not a science.
A
few of these conventional barns still stand throughout the countryside, mostly
dilapidated by time and weather and hidden by trees and vines. By their numbers
per farm, they once symbolized a farmer's opulence. One regular size to large
barn might accommodate 2 to 4 acres, a small farmer; lines of three to six
barns would signify a larger farm, a farmer of some prominence, possibly
farming 12 to 20 tobacco acres. That was an unusually large tobacco farm by most
small-farm standards in Eastern NC.
My recent visit to modern-day farms, with a long tobacco
tradition, included the Cox-Westbrook operation, Jerry & Gene Cox (my
brothers) and Eldridge & Anthony Westbrook (my cousins). Our fathers
Cornice and Earl, respectively, as long as seventy-five years ago, were
partners in tobacco plant beds and transplanting the green weed.
The
tobacco plant needed to grow to a height of 6to9 inches for transplanting to
the field. The seedbeds were, as a rule, located in moist, well-drained soil,
sometime in new-grounds or recently cleared new land. Typically, the best
location was where the sun shines, yet shielded from the cold March winds by
bordering wooded areas. Bed preparation began in January or February, and selecting
the right variety of seed was an important decision for the farmer. In the
forties and early fifties, I remember varieties such as Virginia Bright,
Bonanza, Hester, Gold Leaf, and one of Daddy and his brother’s favorites, for a
period, was Hicks. In tobacco's earlier years, before 'commercial seed farms'
produced seed for sale, the farmer would harvest his own seed. From some of the
best plants of his field, he allowed the white-pinkish-red blossoms to flourish
and dry up.
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As
late as 1954 varieties were localized, estimating that as many as 70 cultivars
were being grown. In 1955 new, more-identifiable varieties were sold such as
Coker 139, and within two years per-acre production increased by 30%. During
that period 50% of all flue-cured was planted with it. Coker 139 did have
quality issues; therefore, other varieties such as Coker 298, 258, 254, &
247, Speight G-228 in 1960, NC 2326 from NC State University, and several other
varieties were developed. Some varieties helped in limiting resistance to Black
Shank and Granville Wilt. [2]
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Sowing
the seed was a meticulous process; so tiny they had to be mixed with a filler
of some kind, such as sand or fertilizer. The soil had been well minced, with
fertilizer incorporated. The farmer needed cotton "netting" to cover
the beds. The cover could be called "tobacco-bed cloth," ''plant-bed
cloth," "cheese cloth,” or as we called it, "tobacco
canvas." The canvas was attached to a frame bordering the bed area. One
bed area was about 10' x 90' to make 100 sq. yards, in general the area seeded
to have adequate plants for an acre of tobacco. To attach the canvas for the
bed borders, a farmer might use 4 to 6 inch wide boards secured by stakes or
small, slim pine trees; some farmers used "slab boards," picked up
from a sawmill’s waste pile. Pine straw or wheat straw might be loosely
strewn over the bed to aid warmth and to protect from washing out by a big
rain. Some arched reeds might be used under the canvas to hold it off the
ground.
One
concern with plant beds was the scourge of a blue-mold fungus attack, which
could be disastrous. On May 3rd 1949 the Smithfield Herald's headline read:
"Rain slows transplanting in County - plants suffer
worst mold attack in 10 years." Certainly you didn't want this
fungus transferred with transplanting to the field.
Picking
grass and weeds out of the growing little tobacco plants, known as
"picking beds," was a tedious and time consuming job, while doing
your best not to step-on or upset the tiny tobacco plants. Hand picking was the
only way to eliminate grass and weeds before the use fumigation with methyl
bromide --- a gas released under plastic covers. The use of methyl bromide
began sometime in the '50s. The beds were gassed after the soil had been
pulverized and evenly smoothed, to prevent extraneous growth. In summary, beds were expensive and the preparation was laborious
work. Hopefully after all the meticulous preparation and a successful seeding,
the earnest, diligent work began with "pulling tobacco plants" in
time for "setting out tobacco." In Eastern NC this usually took place
by mid-April and not later than mid-May.
After
the transplanting land had been broken with a "bottom plow,"
"turning plow," or "breaking plow," basically all the same,
some soils overturned might need smoothing. A Section Harrow would be dragged
over the rough turned turf. The cows had packed the soil while grazing the
winter cover crop. Disking the field, before breaking, with a steel-blade
"disk harrow" possibly would have helped keep it from being so uneven
or cloddy. Horse or mule did all this, and walking behind a Section Harrow in a
dry, dusty field was not so pleasant a job. In my experience, your face,
nostrils and lungs would quickly be filled with dirt.
Tobacco
was planted on a ridged row. It was shameful to have crooked rows; the rows
must be "straight rows" ----unless the field naturally called for
contoured rows on a sloping hillside. Also important, the rows should be run
consistently with the same space separating them, a standard of four feet
apart.
Before
the ridging began, fertilizer needed to be delivered to the farm. The two-hundred
pound bags were pretty heavy for a "little strapper" like myself to
handle. These were the popular 3-9-9 (Nitrogen-Phosphorus-Potash) analysis. The
ten (10) bags, of 2,000 pounds on average per acre, later was reduced to
needing only 5 bags by increasing the analysis to a 6-18-18. The reduction of
filler in the bag resulted in equivalent crop quality and yields and obviously
saved labor. Most farmers applied fertilizer by streaming a band along the row
with a Cole, John Blue or other brand of distributor during the ridging
process. Many times it was the job of a young boy or girl to tend the
fertilizer bags. With my hands, I raked out the fertilizer into buckets until
the bag was light enough to pick up and pour in the bucket, or with Daddy's
help, pour it in the hopper. The buckets had better be ready to dump in the
distributor hopper when the ridging equipment made a round; otherwise, be ready
for daddy’s reprimand.
We
loaded the wagon with the 200-pound bags and set them in position at the end of
the field. These could have been V-C (Virginia-Carolina Chemical Company that
cousin Seth Westbrook sold in Goldsboro) or some other brand. If the rows were
too long for the distributor to make a full round, we'd drive the wagon across
the middle of the field, judging just where to set each bag, before unhitching
the horses to harness them to the cultivator ridging equipment. In earlier
years, many times it had been done in three-separate steps, using a mule or
horse to run the row, followed by the fertilizer distributor and then the
ridging plow. In later years, after Daddy's horse-drawn riding cultivator was
retired, I would ridge "straight
rows" with the one-row VAS-Case tractor in one process. During the 1950s
some farmers began broadcasting their fertilizer evenly over the field just
before the ridging. At least some farmers used this method experimentally.
Before
transplanting began, the field was measured to the acreage allocation specified
by the county Agriculture Stabilization and Conservation Service office.
Planting could not to exceed your quota. Otherwise, you would have to cut down
the overage, which might become a contentious issue with some farmers. ASCS
hired help who measured the farmer's acreage after planting, to ensure the
farmer didn't exceed his legal quota. One summer I did some of the
aerial-photo-map-plotting measurement, supervised by my cousin Mildred
Westbrook Langston's husband, Millard Langston.
A farmer who walked behind the plow will never forget the
aroma of the freshly broken earth. It was the 'spring of life' for an eternal
tobacco season. That seasoning, the love and hard work of farm life, got many a
farmer past archaic methods such as pegging or dropping one plant at a time in
hand transplanters, which required thirty man hours per acre.[3]
While
"setting out tobacco," as it was called in the late '40s and into the
'50s, Uncle Earl would drive his team of mules, trained at a slow pace, pulling
a one-row semi-mechanical planter. Cornice and another man would sit low to the
ground with plants pilled high on a board, or without the board, plants rested
on their legs. Alternately they deposited the roots of individual plants into a
furrow with a precise timed rhythm, with a click signaling a douse of water
gushing to its root. The plant was sealed with compacted soil made by two
blades pressing down and squeezing soil against the plant from each side. This
was advanced mechanization because all through the late 40s, the most common
transplanting was done with the hand transplanter, which took two people to
operate. One needed to drop the plants in and someone else had to bring plants
and water from the barrel on the nearby wagon pulled through the field. After
the mechanical planter came along, pegging or using the outmoded hand
transplanter would no longer be needed except to replant dead plants. I did
plenty of that by walking the rows with plants and a pail of water and peg in
hand. If done after a heavy rain, only the peg and plants were needed.
In
later years a machine with rotating clips (or fingers), in which the plant was
placed, and a woman or man on each side of the row, could sit more comfortably
higher off the ground. By this time, in the '50s and '60s, a tractor would pull
most transplanters. It was the forerunner of the more modern-day 4-to-8-row
transplanters of the carousel type: "Various companies began manufacturing
and marketing transplanters so that farmers did have some choice when it came
to purchasing these machines. Powell Manufacturing Company, formed by 3
brothers in Wilson NC, after WWII and incorporated in 1951, manufactured
mechanical transplanters for farmers in Eastern North Carolina. The business
was successful, and its market expanded into most of the flue-cured and burley
growing area. In a 1956 research report, Splinter and Suggs reported on studies
of three brands of transplanters: Lee, Holland, and Powell. The Lee machine
involved direct hand placement of plants into the soil while the Powell and Holland
brands utilized mechanical fingers to place the plants into the soil. Since
these types of machines could be used to transplant other plants such as
vegetable, they became quite common in tobacco-growing operations."[4]
Tobacco
was usually cultivated, or plowed, about three times to keep the grass and
weeds down. Before the first plowing, usually within a couple of weeks after
transplant when tiny-vein roots were filtering the soil, a "side-dressing"
was dropped by each plant. The side dressing, “top dressing” or “soda” as some
called it was carried in a bucket which hung on my arm. Typically it was a
mixture of nitrogen and potash, and I dropped a ‘hand measured’ amount beside
each plant. Many times hoeing was necessary to remove grass or weeds on the
center of the row where the plow could not cover. "Laying-by" would
be the final cultivation using a long sweeping blade on the plow, one round of
the row to cover each side. It made a high mound so as to protect it from
drowning in case of heavy rain. Some farmers used the newly invented one-row
hilling plow, which had an adjustable swing-blade, for furling the row's middle
dirt up to a just-right hill-height. In all, three runs of the row were necessary.
This included the final step to "sweep the middles" or, as we called
it, "busting" or "splitting" the middle with a plow with
lengthy sweeping blades on each side. "Lay-by" was done before the
plant grew too close to maturity, usually about 10-12" tall. Waiting too
late could disturb the fast growing root system. Soon after lay-by in June, or
"hilling" the crop as some of us called it, the crop would be mature.
With ideal weather conditions, the first weekly harvest could begin by
mid-July.
By
mid to the late '50s most farmers were using one-row or two-row tractors to
apply a stream of “top dressing.” In one pass, he plowed the tobacco rows at
the same time. Some of the small-farmer favorites were offset one-row tractors
such as the International Harvester's Cub Farmall, Super A, or the B Allis
Chalmers. Two-row tractors such as Fords and Massey Fergusons were utilized to
cultivate just one row with their rear mounted “three-hitch” two-row
cultivator. Two-rows of cultivation in one pass could not be used because a
two-row planter was not used to insure uniform row width. I used the one-row,
offset, three-gear VAS Case tractor for labor saving cultivation on our farm.
After
the tobacco, corn, cotton, and other crops were "hilled," usually
there were a few days to get some other important tasks done before barning
tobacco started. One of the fun chores was to load the wagon with all the
fertilizer bags; those were the bags we had hauled and dragged in the dirt
while tending the fertilizer hopper. Some had been stored away damp. They were
now smelly and stiff with sediments of fertilizer left in their porous weave.
We'd haul a hundred or more bags to our Westbrook low grounds adjacent to Mill
Creek. On the backside of the field, we'd drive the team of horses and wagon
down into the Mill Creek's bed. The wider banks at this area with shallow water
allowed an ideal place for my brother Zeke and me to wash all the bags.
Meanwhile we had a little joyful, cooling play in the water. After the bags
were returned to the house and hung out to dry, they were an important resource
to use as feedbags, etc. Unraveling the seams in many of them, we made tobacco
slide bagging, or with four or more sewed together, we'd make large sheets for
cotton or covering tobacco. Some would serve as tarps when carrying tobacco to
market.
At
harvest, Cornice and Earl had a different arrangement. As so many families with
children in those days, Cornice's family, with three of his brothers and a
sister, joined in a family production. Rotating from one family's field to the
next to harvest about 15 to 18-acres, it took a full week to make the circuit.
This arrangement among many small farmers, not necessarily of the same family,
was known as "swapping hands" or "trading help."
Late
afternoons and evenings into dark, as well as Saturdays, would be used for
“topping.” That was breaking the blossoms at the right place, just above the
highest small leaf you believed would grow to a nice sized tip leaf. After the
plant had been topped, accelerated growth of ‘the dreaded’ sucker began.
“Suckering tobacco” was breaking the pesky "little buddings" that
would grow above almost every stem of the stalk's leaf. If left to grow, these
suckers would grow big, thereby bleeding the plant of its quality and weight
production. One beneficial thing could come from a sucker: if the main stalk
got accidentally broken or the plant's grown-center, the 'tender growing bud,'
was eaten by budworms, the solution was to "turnout a sucker." The
sucker became the alternate stalk of tobacco. Sometimes this was done with
premature flowering tobacco plants.
Fantastically,
a chemical control of the "dreaded sucker" arrived in the 1950s.
Maleic hydrazide (MH), applied after topping, became a welcoming helper to stop
sucker growth. Initially it was applied to each individual stalk. I used a hand
applicator to squirt a dose of MH on the stalk's top, where the blossom had
been broken. For control, the MH run down the stalk. It would primarily stop
the suckers, but it did stunt some growth of the upper leaves. By the 1960s the
development of a "contact sucker control material" (fatty alcohols)
was sprayed on the plant to stop the emerging suckers in their track. This let
all the leaves mature. Topping was followed by a common brand of Royal
MH-30 spray on the plants to insure a sucker-free
plant.
Diseases
could be a problem in some growing or grown tobacco fields. I don't remember
that Daddy ever had much problem. Black-Shank
fungus, first discovered in 1915, or Granville
Wilt first discovered in 1880, could destroy the crop. On June 24th, 1949,
the Smithfield Herald's headline read: "Black Shank
Spreads Through Tobacco Fields." Tobacco Mosaic Virus disease was
another troublesome problem on some farms. The development of more resistant
varieties and land use/rotation practices became ways to help control these diseases.
On your day to barn, "puttin-in tobacco," it was
an early rise. With only the help of Daddy and Uncle Royster, Zeke, me and
sometimes sister Katherine, we would be up by 3 or 3:30 a.m. We needed to be
ready to go to the field when the "trading help" family members came,
usually by about 6:30 a.m.
We
awaked the horses to hitch-up to the wagon, which they probably liked no better
than me. There was a day's work ahead for them pulling the heavy tobacco
slides. Forcing the bridle bit between their jaws, you knew their resistance to
begin the day. Led out to the side-door of the barn for harnessing, hopefully
in some moon light, I latched their collars around their shoulders, mounted and
buckled their hames firmly on the collar. Throwing the strapped-chain trace
over their back for each side to be hitched to the wagon's singletree, we'd
drive the wagon to the tobacco barn door. Our horses would stand silently, most
of the time, with an occasional contemptuous snorting, until the wagon was
loaded.
A
kerosene lantern was lit to dimly glow in the dark barn, for it was now
"take-out tobacco" time. I liked to wear a wide-brim hat to shield
the sand raining-down, especially when the "sand-lugs" were removed.
You never looked up with your eyes open when you were taking two or more of the
cured sticks from above; otherwise, your eyes would be filled with sand. That's
why I liked to go to the top tiers.
We
hoped there would have been enough moisture in the air since the furnace was
shut down and barn doors opened the night before, for the leaf not to be so
brittle. When we were still using the wood furnace and the firing ran to the
last day before barning, there were times we'd pour water on the hot furnace
making steam to more quickly bring the dry leaf to order. For fragile dry leaf
could not be stored in the pack house, risking crumbling leaf damage.
In
"taking out baccer," the worst thing that could happen early in the
morning was discovery of green stems, "swelled stems," not completely
dried out. These were most often found in top tiers or other places where
tightly-tied sticks were too closely hung. They would need more drying time. If
too many were found, the barn would have to be re-fired. If just a few, we
would hang them in the gable tiers to finish drying with the next "cooking
of tobacco" or, if just slightly swelled, we'd hang'em in the pack house for
a natural drying.
After
the wagon was unloaded, all the cured sticks were in the pack house, we'd
"put up" the horses, unhitch them and turn them loose in the
horse/cow lot. They needed water and would go into the open stable to eat. We'd
give them each 8 to 10 full ears of corn and throw down some more Sericea
Lespedeza hay from the loft, if they had eaten it all from the night before.
We'd feed the hogs and chickens. Daddy always maintained two milk cows to
ensure that one was always fresh for the family's milk use. The other cow
nursed one or two young calves. Daddy milked the cow most of the time; however,
there were periods I'd milk when he had others things that he had to take care
of. Both the cows had to be put out every morning to pasture. Usually that meant
carrying them to the lowlands pasture.
Mama
had our breakfast ready: fried hog shoulder, sometimes ham, sausage or liver
pudding, with rice, gravy, and hot biscuits, along with some of Daddy's sweet
honey. Our family never particularly liked grits. Or our breakfast might just
be warmed over, toasted, half-biscuits with a slice of cheese melted on it,
leftover fried sweet potatoes, or maybe a bowl of cornflakes.
 |
We
didn't have a "swapping hands" agreement with my Uncle Carl
Westbrook, Mama's brother, who lived just across the road at her old home
place. He did need help to "take out" tobacco quite often from the
two old log barns, just down the lane in front of our house. Granddaddy
Eldridge Troy Westbrook had built these barns at the turn of the century. Mama
or Daddy would come to our room to wake us to help him early in the morning if
Uncle Carl hadn't already come to the window knocking to awake us. Getting up
was hard, especially as teenagers when we might have stayed out a little late
the night before.
On many occasions, even when
we didn't have to take out tobacco, Daddy would exhale his "alerting
special signal." If we were not out of bed before he returned from milking
the cow, there would be a price to pay: After his loud cheerful whistle on
returning from the cow barn, we'd best be up by the time he had stored the
milk. If not, we knew a yardstick or long switch would soon be approaching our
room, headed for the thin sheet over our legs.
Taking
out the dried leaf was essential because another day of "cropping
tobacco" would refill the barn again with green leaf. The tied-sticks of
green leaf would have to hang in racks outside the barn, or lay stacked on the
ground next to the barn door until there was room in the barn. The 4'
6"-long sticks when strung tight with large leaves could weigh 25-30
pounds or more. Due to the weight, weak sticks often broke. We'd thread and
push a good stick under the broken one and all was well.
During
the day when the barn got very warm inside, it was an arduous, wearisome chore
for the hangers; Bernard caught the physical brunt, having to push every
heavy-tied stick up to the first-tier's-man; Henry, the first-tier's-man hung
the bottom tiers but had to push other sticks to the upper-tier’s man. The upper
tiers were usually my position or uncle Lester's. "Filling the barn"
could be a grueling chore after already a sultry day in the field "priming
tobacco," especially
"lugging" the lower leaf. For me, priming the lower leaves was
an excruciating back and hip exercise.
"Hanging
tobacco," you had to know how far apart to put the sticks. It was
important to count the sticks before tying began, so you would know the approximate
number to be hung. The last room hung should be close to the same density as the
first room. Typically an average barn would hold 400 to 600 sticks of tied
green leaf. Imperatively a consistent, unrestricted, even airflow throughout
the barn made the difference for a quality-cured leaf.
Physically
challenging, the best "tie-er" ("stringers" or
"loopers") such as Aunt Nina Cox and handers (usually 2 per stringer)
such as Aunt Emma Williams hurried to get the slides unloaded. Younger
children's help, mostly handing at the barn, was less proficient but good help.
Our family never removed the leaves from the slide to pile on a shelf for more
comfortable handing. Picking the leaves up from the lower portion in the slide
was no problem for the youth; however, sometimes it stressed the backs of a
grownup. Many times unloading the slides, handing and trying, would get behind.
That necessitated working extra hard work, to "catch up." You didn't
want 3 or 4 slides full of tobacco when the four (4) field-dreary croppers
returned to hang tobacco. Many times, however, they had to help catch up. Some
of the barn hands also helped pass the sticks from the outside racks or piles
to the barn door and on to the man pushing the tied-sticks up to the
first-tier's-man. Usually, to be the most proficient, all these positions were
designated for repeat performance each day.
During
the days of the wood furnace, a small operator, without the benefit of hired
help, might spend restless nights stoking the furnace. This was after toiling
through the harvest day. As a child I remember some of those nights lying with
my daddy gazing at the starry universe. When my uncles Bernard and Henry still
used wood furnaces, they would give it a last minute heavy stoking before
leaving to put in tobacco away from home. After the morning's barning, either
Bernard or Henry would drive back to their barns at dinnertime to give them a
heavy stoking which lasted until they were back home in the evening. This was
not ideal curing, but they would be more attentive to the barns throughout the
evening and night. Conservative as they were, they stayed with wood curing as
long as anyone in our community that I remember.
A
farmer's wife might be called to double duty, stoke the furnace or hand tobacco
in the early morning, before preparing a meal for the work crew -- or even
making time to nurse an infant child.
Some
operators didn’t have a “trading hands” arrangement, having to hire their
labor. Barning tobacco labor was competitive. Some producers, either out of
generosity or incentive to retain their labor crew, provided refreshments at
mid-morning for the helping hands: Pepsi, Coca Cola, RC Cola, nabs, Moon Pies,
peanuts, candy, etc. Others, like the Coxes, believed this was a waste of time
(and money), but surely a jar of well-drawn, cool water --- to rehydrate the
sweat drenched body --- would be delivered by the "truck driver."
The
truck driver was the young boy coming of age, 10-12-years old. He drove the
horse or mule trucking the "tobacco slide" or as some called it,
“trucking tobacco." More logically it was a "sled" but the farm
jargon was "slide," used for trucking the cropped tobacco leaves to
the barn. All the leaves were piled inside the burlap fertilizer bagging which
skirted inside the slide’s upright post. The "truck driver" unhitched
and re-hitched the horse's singletree on each exchange of the full slide for an
empty slide at the barn. Handling the two plow-lines, the singletree and the
clevis could be a challenging job for a very young lad. Sometimes the horse
didn’t want to obey, backing her horse up to the slide. Some of the youngest
slide drivers would get help at the field and barn to make the switch. The
driver especially needed to be careful not to turn over a loaded slide. Driving
the heavy top-loaded slide, there was a fear of the hillside, deep ruts, or a path
along the edge of a ditch bank. The anxiety of a reprimand weighed heavily on a
young boy's conscientious mind. But on those occasions of distress, my uncles
gently understood I was probably doing as well as could be expected. Since our
slides didn't have horizontal side slats, the slide could carry more leaves by
bulging out between the four (4) stanchions on each side of the slide. Many
times they were loaded so heavily there was barely toe room to catch a ride on
the back.
The
horse was expected to be obedient when pulling the slide between the tobacco
rows. Their plow-line reins were tied to one of the front slide's stanchions,
giving them free rein. They were expected to go forward on "Gitty-up"
and stop on "Whoa.” Contrarily, sometimes in the early morning, the horse
could be stubborn or was so full of energy she didn't want to stop on the
"whoa" command. When that happened it truly was a "woe" of trouble: Croppers naturally refused to
accept this behavior. Nothing could be more frustrating to the cropper. He had
a "full under-the-arm cropping of tobacco leaves," having to race
ahead to catch the slide. If the horse continued being disobedient, she would
have to be de-energized: That meant a cropper jumping on the slide, grabbing
the reigns, whipping her on the rump for a fast, long ride around the field. Or
it might be down the road and back. Returned to the cropping position, she was
now usually more than ready to obey on "whoa."
Of
course Cornice Cox and his brothers never, ever smoked. His sister Emma's
husband Royster did smoke, and also my brother Zeke about the time he became a
high school junior. He did not smoke around mama or daddy. Royster cropped his
row ahead of the others to have time to "light up." Zeke would also
occasionally smoke a cigarette at the end of the row. The others would look at
them like "what you want to do that for?" What could anyone say?
Everyone standing by, in their own way, was promoting the product. If not
overtly knowledgeable of tobacco's harmful, usage affects, it was well known
that it had no health benefits. It was an eerie silence in an unspoken
contradiction of transgression and righteousness.
With
big horses such as Robin and Dobbin, the large, well-trained, Persian
workhorses my daddy owned, you could catch a ride on the back of the slide
fully loaded with tobacco. These were horses big and strong enough that my
brother Zeke and I used separately to pull a ‘two-horse turning-plow’ for
breaking land. A tobacco slide fully loaded to be carried long distances often
brought a smaller horse or mule to an exhausted halt, before they could
continue to the barn. Occasionally a horse or mule balked, not because of
fatigue, but just stubbornly refused move.
When
tractors came into use, some farmers left the 5th row open so a narrow trailer
could be pulled to transport the green leaf. Our family only used slides until
1954 when we first began using the new Silent Flame riding harvester.
Ostensibly, it was one of the prototypes purchased from the Cox boys' first
cousin, Charles Warren, at John C. Warren and Co. in Newton Grove. Although,
before '54, we did use the tractor, not to pull a trailer, but to pull the
slide when it was a long distance from the field. The ‘field horse’ was still
used in the field. Before I became a cropper, I drove either of my uncles
Lester's or Henry & Bernard's 3-gear Leader Tractors.
Dinner
(country lingo for lunch) break was always a welcome relief. Many days a
cropper's clothing would stay wet most of the day. It was ensured by the morning's
dewy tobacco, an early morning shower, or sweating down under the airless,
humid, tobacco rows of the stifling, hot field. Further, your wet clothing came
from hanging the wet-tied-tobacco sticks or just sweating in the hot tobacco
barn. You hoped that your clothes would dry a little before having to sit down
at dinner in uncomfortable damp or wet clothing.
Before
eating of course you had to clean up, a very difficult job. The
tobacco sticky-gum stuff would buildup on any surface in a short time. It was
all over your clothes, your hands, arm hair, even eyebrows could be covered
with a thick film of the dark sticky stuff. The
juices from the large, tobacco hornworm you'd pulled apart, in the field or off
the slide, wasn’t helpful to dissolve tobacco gum. However, the" Lava
soap" or sometimes "homemade lye soap" usually did its work with
a good bit of raw scrubbing. Removing tobacco gum (tar like stuff) was not easy
or quick. Finally cleaned: The call came,
"Let's eat!"
---
Of
course, we hadn't forgot the horses. They needed rest and to be watered and fed
as well. Just stopping by the water trough in midmorning for a drink was not
sufficient to last the day. They were un-harnessed, let go in the lot to drink
and enter the open stable doors where they could eat hay and corn.
Additionally, they could lie down for a rest.
---
No
matter the home at which we worked, before a dish was passed or a fork lifted,
we bowed our heads in a moment of silence. Each individual would have a few
seconds to reflect and give thanks for the food, a silent blessing of our
Quaker heritage.
Usually, a well-prepared delicious, hot meal along with
cool water was ready. At Grandmamma’s on Cox Mill road where the ice truck ran
weekly, we would have sweet iced tea. We might have iced tea at other places if
someone could drive to the store to get the ice. (Apparently, our sweet iced
tea was better than the tea Daddy and his siblings talked about drinking as
youth, years earlier. That was Aunt Maude Cox’s tea while puttin-in tobacco at
their Uncle Roscoe’s.)
Croppers
and barn help would be first to eat, followed by the smaller children.
Hopefully there would be just a few minutes to lie on the porch, resting a
fatigued body. It was needed before the drudgery again began, back to the
sun-heated field, for another sweat-laden afternoon.
After
the day of "puttin-in tobacco," hanging the last sticks to fill the
barn, it was back home to get in the milk cows, let the calves nurse, feed all
the livestock, pick up the eggs and prepare for the next barning day.
Before
supper the day's work called for a good wash-down by the hand pump on the back
porch. By 1950 a refreshing shower in the modern-day bathroom would bring
revitalization to a weary soul. The house might have cooled down since the
heat-of-day by a cooling rain shower, even though still very humid. Maybe one
could have a restful night, but during some periods that seemed to be a very rare occasion.
Often
excruciating heat was collected under the house’s hot-tin roof which had no
insulation barrier. Additionally, to nourish diligent laborers, the heat would
accumulate from the wood cook-stove, on which two hot meals a day were
sometimes cooked. It created more heated misery than one could bear by bedtime.
We boys with Daddy, for small relief from the heat, would take perch on the
front porch's wooden floor, stripped to our bare undershorts. But we were
always up and ready for the next day's "barning of tobacco."
The
weekly process of "puttin-in tobacco" continued through the summer
for five to seven weeks or more. Many farmers brought in help from the city
residents: black and white, kinsmen youngsters, cousin or grandchildren, boys
and girls, youths of city professionals, anyone who wanted to make a dollar or
just wanted a part of the tobacco experience.
Tobacco,
being a resilient crop, rarely was a complete failure caused by drought. The
crop could be destroyed by disease, hail, or damaged by wind. But after a long
drought, a good early to mid-summer drenching would still make a late crop. Of
course it was not of top-quality, high-quantity yield. Caused by drought or
otherwise, the late crop would dictate public-school openings being delayed.
The "golden harvest" was vital to the local economy and a family's
livelihood. Its harvest was dependent on the larger majority of the community's
school children.
Family
farmers were landowners, tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and renters who
"tended" tobacco of large landowners or a smaller owner who may have
had a public job. Some small farmers raised a small crop of tobacco, barning it
on Saturdays, while holding down a public job on weekdays.
Semi-Mechanical
Harvester Era
The
mid-fifties began a new era of harvesting which continued into the sixties and
seventies. Several types of semi-mechanical equipment evolved which included
riding harvesters such as Silent Flame by Long Mfg., Case
and Roanoke Holiday. In 1952 George
Watson of Watson Seed Farm near Rocky Mount and Bill Long of Long Manufacturing
Company went to the mid west to observe some of the equipment used in
detasseling corn. After their observation, they purchased two of the machines.
Watson used one in his seed production operation. And Long used one for ideas
to begin building a prototype self-propelled riding tobacco harvester.[5]
With
these riding machines, the horse-drawn slides were no longer needed. The ride
provided relief from awkward, uneven footsteps along the row's
middle-to-ridge's edge. It was a relief from 'back-bending excruciation,'
lugging and priming tobacco. None of these riding harvesters were ideally mechanized,
but each had its own design to make harvest more efficient and labor less toilsome.
From the mid-west trip of Watson and Long, Bill Long began an evolution in
'tobacco harvesting': His riding four-row, four-seat harvester, a self
propelled tricycle, had two seats on each side. Each of the four (4) men
cropped their row, putting their leaves into clips on a conveyer chain. The
‘hand bundles,’ three or four leaves, of tobacco carried to the upper deck
where the tie-er tied it on the stick.
I
have a vivid memory of the Cox family's first day's use of this harvester in
1954 because of the previous day's experience. In that year, my
great-granddaddy's Joseph Thornton Westbrook Family Reunion was held the day
before. It was an early Sunday in July at Duffy and Naomi Weeks' home in Newton
Grove. The reunion usually drew a large crowd from surrounding counties,
including some who were of no kin, such as Evander Simpson, Johnston County's
Public School Superintendent. He had in earlier years been principal at Newton
Grove School. Duffy's large yard, shaded by big oaks, was a welcoming place to
spread dinner. As some of us young boys gathered there by the roadside, along
came a young Williams lad. He was on his parents' 'new,' green Dodge
automobile. Our second cousins, the Darden boys, knew Williams, so brother Zeke
and I got on with them to go for a ride. It was a rare occasion to have a ride
in a brand-new car. Around the Newton Grove traffic circle, going down Highway
701 south, Williams tried to show-off the power of the new '54 Dodge's engine.
It was not so much the lack of power as poor judgment that made it impossible
to safely pass a vehicle. An oncoming car would have hit us head-on, if Williams
had not rolled the new automobile off the highway's high-bank on the left side
by the graveyard. Luckily no one was seriously hurt, but I had lots of
unusually sore and stiff muscles cropping the next day on the harvester. First
using it at Hershel Rose’s farm, in some irregular rows which required an
out-stretched arm, made me wonder if I could ever get used to it.
As
the tobacco-harvester machine slowly crawled along, the driver removed the tied
sticks and hung them in racks at the back of the harvester. The seven people
required to operate the ride had to be in complete unison for the demanding
efficiency of this harvester's unforgiving nature. With only two tie-ers, one
miscue, and un-removed hands of green tobacco would be returning to the cropper
with no clips to put in more tobacco. Afterwards, some models had four tie-ers,
one for each cropper. When the racks were full it would be loaded on a trailer
for transport to the barn.
In
1961 the first electric-automatic-tobacco tie-er was used to sew tobacco on the
sticks. By 1967 approximately 5,000 were used. These reduced the barn labor by
approximately 50%.
When
bulk barns were initially coming into use during the late sixties and gradually
growing in prominence thereafter, some of the tricycle-type harvesters provided
for filling racks for bulk curing as leaves were cropped. Some later
harvesters, drawn by tractor, required the fifth row not be planted where the
tractor pulled a machine with swing-out seats. On each side, 2 rows cropped by 2-croppers would harvest four rows
in one pass. (Sweet potatoes were at times planted in the left-out row.) This
machine advanced from "tying tobacco," behind the tractor to
"racking tobacco" in the field, before carrying it to the bulk barn. (Davis, B&O, Silent Flame,
Roanoke-Holiday, Powell, Shaver, Peerless, and Bell) On average a
maximum performance on these riding harvesters, using a driver, 2 loopers and 4
croppers, was 600 sticks a day -- according to Larry Sykes’ Mechanization and Labor Reduction book.
All these assorted riding-harvesters were the interim-models, precursors, to
the truly modern-day mechanical harvester.
Preparing the cured leaf or “grading tobacco” for market
delivery was a time consuming ordeal. Larry Sykes' MLR research book quantified
116 man-hours per acre for this preparation. Tobacco, out of the curing barn,
that had been piled in the pack house to dry to grade had to be brought to
"order" or "case." Before being brought ‘in order’ it was
too dry and brittle to grade and tie. We would spread the sticks out in the
yard on grass or any space available, late in the evening after dark or early
mornings. The dew would work its magic. Otherwise, we re-piled it to spray each
layer with a fine mist of water. Some farmers were fortunate enough to have
special ordering pits, built below ground of the packinghouse. Stripped from
the cured stick, known as "taking off tobacco," each leaf had to be
graded. Depending on the curing quality, the leaves would be graded into 2 to 4
grades or more. Some perfectionist or, perhaps more accurately, ‘peculiar
producers’ might make 5, 6 or more grades. Each grade was tied into bundles of
40 to 50 dried stem butts. The stem butts were tightly pressed together and
‘wrapped or tied’ with a select, strong, moistened leaf. It made the bundled
tie about a 50-cent to silver-dollar size. The bundles, after being tied, were
stacked on the floor. Now each of them had to be put on a grading stick. Each
bundle was separated below the tie, and about 20 to 25 of them were pushed
tightly together straddling the slick stick. The full sticks were pressed down
in an orderly pile, made ready for the auction-sale warehouse.
It
was a very meticulous process, especially when grading the various "test
plots" of tobacco. In the early 1950s our upland, prime-tobacco soil had
become terribly infested with nematodes, critically affecting quality and
poundage production. So our field was ideal for the experimental test-plots
where different kinds of chemicals were used to determine their effectiveness
against nematodes. Dow Chemical's black liquid was one of the products used to
fumigate the soil. At grading time, our County Agriculture Extension Service
Chairman, Cullie Tarlton, came to assist in the grading process. From row ridging
to end of marketing, keeping all the different production plots separated was
time consuming. It was a painstakingly, detailed process that few farmers
wanted to mess with. But it was worth the trouble, not only for knowing how to
best kill parasitic nematodes in our field, but Daddy knew it would assist agriculture
science to the benefit of other farmers.
Grading
and bundling the cured leaf required all the family's diligence. Even when we
returned home from school and into the late night we would be
"stripping" (taking tobacco off sticks), leaving a mound of wasted
cotton-tying thread beside the tie/stripping horse. Throughout the day mama and
daddy would grade the leaves, leaving the bundling for us children after
school. Putting the bundles neatly on slick-grading sticks, we packed/pressed
them down with a wide board on which someone would stand. This was our
"gold dollars." Some families would have "tobacco-tying/bundling
parties." Young people would gather in the "packing house" in
late evenings, drink sodas and tie bundles of tobacco. The carefully wrapped,
tied bundles had to be ready before the auction market closed.
Why and when (first year) was flue-cured
tobacco required to be bundled? It necessitated so much seemingly unnecessary
extra labor and processing hours! "Why"
we often asked, without ever really getting an authoritative answer that I
remember. We dutifully accepted the obligation; we only knew that it must be a
requirement of tobacco’s manufacturing 'higher powers.' I longed to have the
answers to these questions, especially since farther to the south, Georgia and
Florida, we didn’t understand why it never was required to be bundled. I began
to wonder if anyone now living really knew. But Clay Frazier of Universal Leaf,
Wilson NC, had their procurement team contact NCSU Tobacco Specialist,
Loren Fisher.
Universal
Leaf's George Scott answers: "We could
not determine the 1st year of bundling tobacco on auction. The
reason the growers were required to bundle the tobacco was to aid in processing
the tobacco. First, some customers used to purchase bundles to be exported from
the U.S. By having the tobacco in bundles they could be placed on a stick and
sent through a redryer prior to being packed for shipment. The other reason,
which became the most important reason, the tobacco that was bundled could then
be "tipped and threshed" (T&T). T&T means that the first 2 to
3" of the leaf (the portion that has very little stem content) would be
cut and go straight to the redryer. The remaining part of the leaf would be
sent to the threshing line in order to remove the lamina from the stem. This
practice stopped being required in the late 1960's due to the increases in
labor costs. This practice still occurs in some countries, such as Brazil, today.
In the U.S. today, all companies utilize whole leaf threshing, which results in
the entire leaf proceeding to the threshing line in order to remove the lamina
from the stem." In retrospect it kind of makes me wish our family's labor
had been valued a little more during those bundling years.
Little
would stand in the way of processing tobacco for market. Cotton had to be
picked before heavy rain or fall storms; otherwise, its grade would be
significantly reduced. On the other hand, harvest of other crops such as corn
and soybeans, many times, would have to wait until Thanksgiving and December.
Pulling ears of corn in the early morning's cold frost numbed our hands.
As the ears of
corn were pulled, we threw the ears of corn in piles about every six rows
apart. Later we would drive the horses and wagon down the row beside the piles
and throw the ears into the wagon. We hauled the loads to the barn and with a
two-hand, strong-arms’ throw, we delivered them to the backside of the old
barn. By 1947-48 we pulled up beside the new barn. Using the heavy, wide
seed-forks, we threw the ears through the wide, horizontal side-door of the
barn.
Near
the end of the tobacco harvesting season, as tobacco-auction sales were being
opened, many tobacco towns/cities would have a festival, a Farmers Day
Celebration: "August 15th 1945 turned out to be the most celebrated day in
Johnston County history. It was scheduled as 'Farmers Day' in Smithfield - an
annual festival started by the Chamber of Commerce some years before to mark
season-opening sales on the Smithfield Tobacco Market. Then, on the evening of
August 14th came the news of Japan's surrender to end the war. 'The stage was
set for a gigantic victory celebration in Smithfield,' rejoiced the Herald in
an extra edition topped with the headline 'WAR ENDS!'"[6]
Tobacco
market openings were a time for high spirits because the numerous auction warehouses
brought many people and tobacco dollars
to town. The drudgery, manual-labor's heavy-lifting, was close to being over, but
more importantly, there was money to buy school clothes, other essentials, or
maybe a new appliance for the home. By the time electricity was turned on at my
home in 1947, I was ten-years old, and my Daddy had already purchased or saved
money to get most of the essential electrical appliances for our home. It was
almost as if we had gone from 'Third World' into a 'Developed Country' of
living --- overnight. With
tobacco's help, Daddy progressed from his used 1939 Ford to more dependable
used cars, a 1946 Chevrolet and a 1949 Plymouth. By
1953 tobacco funds helped purchased his first new car, a 1953 Plymouth.
While
at the auction market in Smithfield, with good money in our pocket, in a rare
extravagance we might get a 'one-of-a-kind-chili' hotdog and cold drink from
Fred's Place on S. Third Street. Tobacco currency replenished the cupboard,
bought processed foods to which we were not regularly accustomed. A box of
Bright-Leaf Hotdogs purchased at Carolina Packers on our way home from market
was something special. Even better than a pig barbecued in a pit under the
tobacco-barn shelter some years, these frankfurters make the last-day's harvest
special. On "tipping-tobacco" day, it was an out of the ordinary
dinner (lunch). And, it was a happy time to have the season's last tobacco in
the barn.
As
soon as possible I'd hitch the horses to our one-row "stalk cutter,"
and go riding bumpily along chopping those skinny green stalks. Of little
concern were the stalks springing back from between the horse’s gear to
splatter a big wet sucker or juicy, green hornworm in my face.
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