Okay this post is literarily centered but about burley tobacco farming. An article in the Feb. 28, 2022 magazine The New Yorker, has an article by Dorothy Wickenden, "Late Harvest," p. 32, about the contemporary agrarian writer Wendell Berry, 87, who for decades has written about his attachment to and labor on the land in Kentucky where he has farmed most of his life. His work includes novels, poetry, essays, and collections of short stories, 52 books in all. Here are two short quotes, one from the article and one from Berry himself. "...Henry County was famous for a light-leafed unusually fragrant crop known as burley tobacco. Those farming the crop, "saw themselves as part of a centuries old culture that produced the most labor-intensive agricultural product in the world." She quotes Berry as writing that the cultivation of tobacco was, "a sort of agrarian passion, because of its beauty at nearly every stage of production and because of the artistry required to product it." The article is worth a reading in its entirety.
