Old Stories About Long Green

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Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,765
13,789
Humansville Missouri
Not my father’s generation, but my grandfather’s generation (he was born 1880) regaled me with stories of their fathers raising home grown tobacco they invariably called Long Green.

All agreed it was very strong, it didn’t taste as good as store bought tobacco, and most Long Green stories included the very young first time user getting sick smoking or chewing it.

The type was called Long Green, although the name described the long green leaves. It was raised in the family garden, chopped off and hung in a smokehouse or barn, and when brown their fathers moistened it and twisted it into ropes.

My guess is Long Green was a burley.

My grandfather died aged 92 in 1972, and he learned the taste for tobacco he said when he was about six, and my grandmother lit his last Camel the night he died of old age mostly, but infection from an ingrown toenail specifically.

He said that the Cotton Bill Twist he’d sometimes buy to chew, tasted exactly like Long Green. He also chewed plug, leaf, snorted nasal snuff, dipped snuff, smoked cigars and a pipe, hand rolled cigarettes, but never missed a payment on his Camels, which he liked the most.

Does anyone have any better information on home grown tobacco called Long Green.

From the stories, the kids who used it grew up to buy their tobacco and not try raising their own.
 

makhorkasmoker

Part of the Furniture Now
Aug 17, 2021
565
1,357
Central Florida
The back cover info of that book says it’s a history of bright leaf, and that doesn’t sound like the “long green” mr lee is describing. Hope someone knows more . The history of homegrown burley , especially outside of the traditional growing areas, interests me
 

Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,765
13,789
Humansville Missouri
The back cover info of that book says it’s a history of bright leaf, and that doesn’t sound like the “long green” mr lee is describing. Hope someone knows more . The history of homegrown burley , especially outside of the traditional growing areas, interests me
More ruminations on Long Green.

In the late 1980s I was traveling in rural Kentucky and came on a genuine old time general store, that had little seed packages of burley tobacco for sale. There were several varieties, all cheaply priced.

The owner of the store told me those varieties were specific to that area in Kentucky. That if I wanted to raise tobacco in Missouri contact my county extension office back home.

I know I’m getting old, because I had to explain to my youngest son what a county agent was the other day. As late as 25 years ago every county in Missouri had a county extension office.

My county agent back then said only one variety of burley might grow in our county, he called Platte County Burley.

He said it was only good as a filler for cheap cigars, and it sounded like a lot of trouble for an inferior smoke, so I passed.

Most of the old men that told me about Long Green died in the sixties. I think my grandfather was the last one to talk about it.

Long Green (whatever it was) was hard to grow. All kinds of bugs tried to eat it. None of the old men thought it compared at all for smoking with commercial tobacco. Their fathers raised it mainly to chew.

Regional varieties are and have always been part of agriculture.

If somebody had a collection of Pre 1900 seed catalogs I’ll bet Long Green was a hardy burley that had a wide growing range, like American Beauty tomatoes or some other such old time seed packages the Pioneer Farmers had to have bought once a year to plant gardens with.

It was a long time before I realized that in Southwest Missouri being a Son of a Pioneer Farmer meant your ancestors were Yankee Carpetbaggers.:)

But at least we’uns won that Great Rebellion.:)
 
Last edited:

condorlover1

Lifer
Dec 22, 2013
7,996
26,614
New York
@Briar Lee : This sounds like the stuff I would have grown in the very early 1980s circa 1982 in Essex. The seeds came from the Tilthy tobacco growers cooperative in Dunmow, Essex. Somewhere on Youtube there is a small film about its activities circa 1950. Your description of the plant sounds a lot like what was grown in the U.K. Before the English Civil War the U.K grew incredible amounts of tobacco I have read although it seems to be a little studied part of U.K history.
 

condorlover1

Lifer
Dec 22, 2013
7,996
26,614
New York
'We'uns' is am amusing phrase. I believe it was uttered by a Southern soldier describing the Northern Army during the recent most unfortunate events and was as follows 'You'uns is like pack mules, we'uns is like race horses!'.
 
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makhorkasmoker

Part of the Furniture Now
Aug 17, 2021
565
1,357
Central Florida
I see old tobacco barns while traveling the back roads of Georgia—small ones that I suspect were for personal use, or for selling/trading small amounts—but my understanding is that they had flues. I always wonder if anyone was doing air cured down here.
 
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Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,765
13,789
Humansville Missouri
'We'uns' is am amusing phrase. I believe it was uttered by a Southern soldier describing the Northern Army during the recent most unfortunate events and was as follows 'You'uns is like pack mules, we'uns is like race horses!'.
I can trace my male ancestors from Scotland to Virginia to Tennessee or Kentucky to central Missouri and finally to the Ozark Foothills of Southwest Missouri.

Their women were daughters of Osage Indian chiefs and Confederate and Union generals and even a Rothschild banker.

It pays for a man to ride a horse like he’s born to the saddle.:)

It pays even more to learn how to breed fine horses, and later on champion Missouri Mules.

We were Gaelic.

Watching the Queen take her last ride from Balmoral looked like it could have been Polk County Missouri.
 

Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,765
13,789
Humansville Missouri
@Briar Lee : This sounds like the stuff I would have grown in the very early 1980s circa 1982 in Essex. The seeds came from the Tilthy tobacco growers cooperative in Dunmow, Essex. Somewhere on Youtube there is a small film about its activities circa 1950. Your description of the plant sounds a lot like what was grown in the U.K. Before the English Civil War the U.K grew incredible amounts of tobacco I have read although it seems to be a little studied part of U.K history.
Long Green might have been Rustica.

Whatever it was it was high in nicotine.

There was no mention of smoking or flue curing it. The smokehouse was only a storage place.

The children were warned against it. It was always stolen. Part of the getting sick on Long Green stories was not letting their parents know why they were sick.

Another clue is the Long Green stories had it growing in Mama’s Garden, never in Daddy’s Fields. This meant it was only for home use, not for sale.
 
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Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,765
13,789
Humansville Missouri
Or so he GUESSED...

Guess again...

Just a segue into a long winded off the rails story.

One of the pleasures of growing up in the Ozarks was most old men actually liked kids, that would sit and listen to their stories.

I knew several old men whose grandfathers were veterans of the Great Rebellion, as they invariably called the American Civil War. They could regale me of stories about rebels and bushwhackers and their love of the American nation was deep, that living ancestors they knew fought to keep.

One thing they all agreed on.

Before World War One they thought that people were more friendly, neighborly, and less after a dollar than afterwards.

Every Long Green story I ever heard was from horse and buggy days before The Great War.

They missed the horses and buggies, but not the home grown tobacco.
 
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