[Granville-Hough] 4 May 2009 - Tobacco

[Trustees and Executors for Granville W. Hough]

Good Morning, God, and thank you for April and the great days of Easter. 
May you give us guidance through this new month of May!

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Tobacco

Smoking Joe Sullivan was addicted to tobacco and kept a pipe in his 
mouth at all times. The only time I recall him visiting the Elisha Hough 
farm, he walked through the barnyard gate with a smoking pipe. Elisha 
Hough, a non-smoker, proceeded to push him back through the gate and 
give him the scolding of his life. Smoking Joe was much embarrassed and 
apologized in every way he could. (Everyone knew a barn full of new hay 
was a fuze just waiting to explode into flames. Sometimes we had to turn 
the hay to cool it down. Even so, barns caught fire from spontaneous 
combustion. I describe one such tragedy, the McAlpin barn, elsewhere.)
Neither my mother nor father used tobacco in any form, but we knew 
plenty of women who used snuff and a few who smoked pipes. As for snuff, 
which was tobacco ground into a powder form, you could either sniff it 
or dip it. I cannot remember anyone sniffing snuff, but it must have 
been done. People would say: “I need a dip of snuff.” Dipping it meant 
placing it in the lower lip, where it could create a messy sight. Among 
men, few used snuff, but many chewed tobacco or smoked. We grew tobacco 
for our uncle Elijah and our brother Dueward who had become addicted. I 
also saw people use snuff for an aching tooth; and I suppose it did make 
the pain more bearable. Among those who used snuff or chewing tobacco 
out of sight of children or visitors were Grandpa and Grandma 
Richardson, and Aunt Joan (Sullivan) Richardson.
The tobacco plant required constant care, and we had to remove the 
tobacco worms by hand. They were a large catepillar – the larvae of a 
native moth – which got about two inches long, were a garish green and 
yellow, and had a big horn on their heads. Birds did not bother them. 
They must have tasted terrible. We learned they were harmless, and that 
we could pick them off the tobacco and put them into a bucket for later 
destruction. It took a lot of nerve, but we all became accomplished worm 
pickers. The moth normally laid its eggs on wild plants, probably 
milkweed, and we would see the larvae on these plants in the woods.
When the tobacco plants were grown we cut them and stored them in a 
cotton house until the leaves were wilted and almost dry. Then we could 
take a big leaf, or two small leaves, and make a twist. Then we would 
let the twist get dry and it was in a form for carrying in your shirt 
pocket. These twists were also known as “crosslegs” to distinguish them 
from “boughten” chewing tobacco which came in flat “plugs” which would 
fit into your pocket. When you wanted a chew, you cut off as much as you 
wanted with a sharp pocketknife, got it into a wadded ball in the side 
of your mouth and let saliva do its work, spitting out the excess. 
Enough worked its way down your throat to give the nicotine effect you 
sought. You could also cut it up finely and smoke it in a pipe, which 
was Uncle Sid Richardson’s approach. That was not so messy. But it was 
all mean, nasty stuff. There were fanciful names for both plug tobacco 
and dipping snuff such as Red Bull, Schnapps, Brown Mule, Winesap, etc, 
but we had little contact with them as we grew our own. Grampa Hough.

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From: "Jerry Miller" <Jerry.L.Miller at comcast.net>
Subject: RE: Tobacco - 4 May 2009
Date: Mon, 4 May 2009 20:38:49 -0400

Dear Granville,
  As tobacco was the one cash crop that we had when I was growing up in SC,
your story brings back lots of memories for me. I surmise that your family
grew tobacco for consumption, not for sale, and thus I conclude that the
amount you planted was rather modest.  We grew as many as 10 acres at the
peak of my father's farming career, and although we had a one-row tractor,
most of the work was done by hand. This included the planting of tens of
thousands of individual plants, periodic watering and fertilizing, worming,
suckering, and cropping. 
  We had two kinds of worms: "bud worms" that would eat the tender bud of
the plant when it was still less than one foot tall and the "horn worms"
that you described. For both, we had a chemical remedy which was useful
while the plants were less than half grown: DDT until I was about 12 or 13
years old and then lead arsenate (which was left over from the time before
DDT became available). Both the lead arsenate and the DDT were mixed with
corn meal and applied to the individual plants by bare hands. Poisoning for
bud worms was a back-breaking task because you had to bend down at every
plant and place the poison in the bud. When the plants were closer to full
grown, we used a water-based solution of a noxious chemical called parathion
which tended to drench the sprayer operator as well as the plants. No OSHA
in those days!
  Now regarding "suckering", let me just say that I liked "bud poisoning"
better! As you  may recall,  the adult tobacco plant would tend to sprout a
new shoot at every intersection of a leaf with the main trunk. Large heavy
leaves were the farmer's objective as the market price of tobacco was a
function of both visual appearance and weight. So, the secondary shoots or
"suckers" had to be individually picked off and discarded so that they would
not diminish the growth of the primary leaves. You may also recall that
tobacco exudes a sap that is initially sticky but becomes gummy after a
short time. This is the tar that is so bad for smokers lungs. Ten minutes of
suckering adult tobacco plants will have you covered in this gum, so
suckering for a full day in the July sun was not a pleasant task.
  "Cropping" or picking of the tobacco was nearly as bad as suckering, but
at least it gave you the feeling of making some progress. Three or four
leaves were taken each week starting at the bottom of the plant for a period
of eight or ten weeks until the entire plant was picked to the top. The
produce from the first cropping was called the "sand lugs" because the
leaves were invariably covered with sand, which, of course, added to the
effect of the gum.  Each leave had to be handled carefully - no crushing or
tearing because bruised or torn leaves sold for a lower price. 
  Sometime I will write about the "easy" jobs that the "barn hands" had
compared to the "field hands".  Meantime,  keep your farm stories coming!

Best Regards,
Jerry