Uh, what's the fuss and dust up? I smoked Stonehaven years back as well as Dorchester. I moved on. Yeah, great stuff, but maybe a little too rich for my tastes.
And, now I know it is too rich for my tastes. If an online retailer ups his or her price on something that I like, I either find another etailer with a lower price, or I switch to another tobacco. I'm not too particular.
And, I can always go to PA or Roth's Wal-Hall.
One more note: This is my take on the economics of all this, and yes, it is very simplistic: The government is taking the handle off the pump.
The FDA oversees a bureaucracy that charges tobacco manufacturers for the space they use to store their tobacco; they charge fees that seemingly come out of the thin air. Soon, we, the pipesmokers of the world, will be absorbing more and more of those fees as they are created out of the gargantuan building where the FDA hatches all of its subversive plots.
Until the handle comes off the pump (ref: English doctor in the 1700s or so discovered the townspeople were drinking water from the same pump and getting sick. He took the handle off the pump. End of sickness) The government uses this as an example metaphor when they are ending a thing deemed socially unacceptable.
And we, ladies and gentlemen, are socially unacceptable in today's environment.
Hoarding is not good. That drives up prices. Supply and demand economics 101.
But since I know very little about the agricultural tricks it takes to grow tobacco leaf, I will continue my current program of buying two tins and putting one up to age. I do know that tobacco is not something you just punch into the ground and then wait for a leaf to puff up and dry out and then you crunch into your pipe.
And, btw, I see less and less tobacco leaf in the fields of Tennessee where I live. Used to be tobacco was a "cash" crop for farmers. Now, there are fewer and fewer farmers around, and a real shortage of tobacco farmers.
I am trying to prepare in a sane, reasonable way. When I purchase an order of tobacco, I think of my fellow pipe smokers. I order two tins if I can afford it of anything that I am ordering. One tin goes into the cellar and one gets smoked. I have been doing this for years. I now have a cellar that will, I hope, take me to my grave in the style to which I have become accustomed.
I don't feel that I am a hoarder. I do consider the other pipe smokers out there. There should be enough for us all with the plethora of tobacco manufacturers available today.
Besides, I can't buy tobacco by the case. Two at a time has worked for me and still does. It isn't how much you earn, it's what you do with what you earn.
That's my two. Sorry to prattle on.
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