Tobacco: Revisited
I liked the first ‘photo essay’ about tobacco so well, I have decided to follow through with an update with each major step in the tobacco process. The change from exactly seven days is not much, as the only thing that has occurred is the blooms have been broken out in the lower 2/3 of the field. This was actually done the day after I took the first photos and to help you blend locally, we would call that process topping. Right after the tobacco was topped, it most likely sprayed with a chemical that retards new sprouts or buds from starting. If not done, the tobacco would sucker out at the top leaf joints and spend all of its energy trying again to make seeds. By application of the chemical spray the energy is instead spent on making the leaves that are present usually get larger, especially in width. An effect of this application and the general turn toward the homestretch is that bottom leaves begin to turn yellow. You can this process magnified at the end of the rows where there is direct sun hitting those leaves without the shade of the neighboring plants. By harvest in about two to three more weeks most of the bottom three to six leaves will be all but cured, totally brown.
Note: Historically without the chemical application additional labor would have been used to walk through the field breaking out the suckers and new buds, a process called suckering. If I were raising tobacco on a small-scale for my own consumption this is the practice I would employee.
Incidentally the next step is the harvesting and housing for curing. It will be a dramatic change in the look of the field. It is a process that has not changed much at all in the last 100 years for Same filed, seven days later burley tobacco. But I need to save something for next time.
One thing that I did want to mention though is some historical information. In 1621 over in Virginia & Maryland as might be expected tobacco was used for barter or even currency (ministers for instance, were paid in pounds of tobacco – not even an option for actual currency). Anyway, 12 young women (presumably slaves) could be had for 120 pounds of tobacco each. Says that tobacco was worth a lot or slave were worth very little.
Another read I had early this morning, from Oral History of Burley Tobacco, transcribed and digitized was with a man who had been involved in tobacco since the turn of the century. In the early 1900′s, prior to the depression it was apparently very hit and miss with the prices, but it seems to have worked out mostly to between .06 and .08 cents.  It was interesting to note that the premium price went to the leaves for chewing tobacco until the 1910′s – when cigarettes started and then it reversed what was the premium leaves.  Of course during the depression era, tobacco become regulated on who could grow how much and got a price support program out of the deal.
During the late 1970′s and 1980′s when I was growing up I can recall prices coming in at between 1.75 and 1.95. I don’t think it really got over the 2.00 mark, and if it did, it was for very few. Back in 2004, the price support/quota system was bought out by the government, paying owners and growers out a decent sum for loss of the minimum price. During this time is when that last of the tobacco auction houses (called warehouses) fell into decline and growers started making direct contracts with the companies. Last I heard tobacco contracts were running around 1.40 to 1.50. I have assumed that everyone knows I am giving prices dollars per pound (historically the way it was quoted). If you move the decimal point two places to the left (though usually it be more precise, like 1.41 3/10 would become 141.30, it gives the per 100 weight which is how it is usually quoted these days.
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