Technology Had Little Impact on Tobacco Farming

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

“With the lister, the front wheel guides the discs,” Junior said. “The wheel makes a furrow, the 3-9-15 fertilizer goes in and the discs cover it over. Then they bring a board along to flatten the hill, and the planter comes along after that.”

Transplanting was done by hand. Many years ago, a metal hand-held device consisting of two open-ended funnels was used. The plant was put in one funnel, which made a hole in the ground to receive the root. Water was released from the adjoining funnel by a lever and each plant was stamped in place by the funnel-bearer.

“Planting is still done by hand,” Junior said. “A machine is used, but it’s fed by hand. The plants are put in every 16 inches, with rows 36 inches apart. When they get to full growth, they put out a flower and this has to be picked off by hand. Harvesting starts about 15 days later.”

Irvanette spoke of spending many hours riding on the back of a horse-drawn planting machine that required her to put each tobacco plant in the ground by hand.

“Two people sat in the back facing forward,” she said. “You have the plants on your lap in burlap bags. You put the plant down in the hole [made by the machine] and the water goes in after it. You did four-hour shifts.”

If the planting sounds like serious hard work, it’s nothing compared to the labor involved in the harvesting and packing. Each individual stalk was cut with a heavy knife and impaled on a four-foot, squared-off slabwood stick equipped with a sharp metal point at one end. The sticks were then hauled to the barn by horse and wagon.

“The stalks are very solid but very pliable,” Junior said. “One stalk can weigh 15 to 20 pounds when green, and there are five stalks to a stick. You have to be in pretty good health to hang it up in the barn.”

The tobacco barn is a large, airy building open at both ends, with an aisle down the center to facilitate unloading the green stalks and loading the dried tobacco for dispatch to market warehouses. The cavernous roof area is filled with strong wooden rafters, about five feet apart in each direction, to house the tobacco during its three-month drying period. The stalks are spaced eight inches apart on their sticks to facilitate the drying process, with the sticks equally spaced along the rafters.

Lawrence Pilkerton of Callaway, Md., grew up next door to Junior Hall and remembered the days of working on his parents’ tobacco farm.

“I remember packing the hogsheads on the vertical prize,” he said. “I did all that stuff. Working on the tobacco beds, packing the hogsheads, working in the fields all day and climbing to the top of the barn at night. You needed balance, height and coordination to do that job.”

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print