Anyone Ever Work in a Tobacco Field?

[cranseiron]

Well.... no...., but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express. :puffpipe:

 

[davek]

No, but I watched some tobacco being put up near Rabbit Hash, KY.

Rabbit Hash is just south of me over the river. I worked in northern KY for 30 years.
Knew a lot of people that grew tobacco and often got a few plants free in the spring. Never worked in the fields myself.
There are a lot of varieties available now for home growing you never heard about back then. Burley takes years to be any good if you don't kiln it. I grow Yellow Twist Bud now and it's not bad at all the following spring.

 

[mso489]

I came to N.C. in 1972 to go to school on GI Bill immediately after service in the USN, delighted to get out a little early to start school. Thank you Navy. When I arrived, tobacco was indeed king. That was the cash crop, and tobacco allotments were precious. Tobacco warehouses were everywhere. Durham and Winston-Salem were permeated with the smell of tobacco. Now, most of the tobacco warehouses that housed the tobacco auctions have been re-purposed as flea markets or other uses or simply stand empty. Cotton, soy beans, and other crops have edged over tobacco many places, and most tobacco is grown under contract rather than for auction, and no-smoking has prevailed in retail areas and on campuses and in many offices and work places. Duke University (...I didn't go there, but to a state school) was founded on tobacco money, but so was the state system. The vast tobacco fortunes still hold some sway, but it is a different world today.

 

[diamondback]

mso that sounds like rural northern middle TN (where I’m from).
My great grandfathers all grew burley and had a large garden, chickens, pigs, etc. to feed the family. Growing up, it was nothing to pass field after field of tobacco. Now on the occasion when I drive by those same fields, if they haven’t fallen victim to urban sprawl they’re soy, field corn, cotton...