Thank you for making this. I am the last generation of Trott family from southern Anne Arundel to have lived this until the buyout. I remember going to school each September and the teacher would ask kids what they did over their summer. They would say things like “went to the beach” or “went to camp” or even the occasional “went to Disney World”. I despised those question and answer sessions because my summers were spent very differently. Monday through Saturday started with “two down and one back”. The only joy I could find would be when I drove the tractor as we loaded it up. If I could time it right, I could pop the clutch enough to throw whoever was on the trailer off, and I got pretty good at faking an apology. Karma would catch me a little later when we put it up in the barn, as I was always the trailer man and passing it up to everyone above me. The drips of sweat didn’t seem to bother me, but every now and then I wouldn’t duck low enough and the poles would knock me off my feet as I banged my head on them. The middle of the day break for lunch felt like Thanksgiving every day. My grandmother cooked some of the most delicious meals I have ever had (probably because I was so worn out by lunch). As good as it tasted, it never seemed to sit right in my stomach as I would lay on the trailer afterwards in the heat of the sun. It would feel like I was in a literal food coma, with no possible way I could get the energy back up to keep cutting. I can still feel the splintered wood on my back, as I lay on the trailer listening to the hum and buzz of locusts/cicadas. The sun felt inescapable. I hated it as a kid. My Dad said he did too. I told him I never wanted to grow up and do it, and he told me that he used to say that too. I guess I’m the first one to be able to stick to my word. It is a strange feeling to miss being so miserable, but I would trade 100 days of today’s comfort for just one day of the misery back then. As the people pass on from this earth, so do the stories and memories of how things used to be. Thank you for giving me more than just a “back in my day” story to share with my kids. God Bless.
When I was a young teenager I used to help my grandfather on his farm and an uncle on another farm get their tobacco in. This was in South Central Virginia. They did a completely different method than what you have described. We had these things called slides or sleds, basically a base on runners with ends made of wood with sides made of feed sacks sewn onto poles, these sides could be folded up or down. The slides were pulled by a mule in the early years but later on pulled by a tractor down the rows of tobacco plants. If you were a picker you would go into the field and pick the tobacco starting with the lower leaves, you'd be shown the color and size of leaves to pick. You picked the bottom leaves first because those were 'ripe' and large and ready to pick. If you wanted all of your tobacco to be a really high grade you'd pick only the leaves that were ready and lay them them into the tobacco slide, all in the same direction. I think I remember holding the leaves under my left arm until the slide would be close or I had too many leaves to manage. The slide was pulled along the row as we worked. Once full it was pulled to an area where people, usually women and girls, were doing what was called passing and stringing. There would be a tobacco stick placed on a stand at the end of which was a ball of white string. To string the tobacco a passer would quickly take 3 leaves off of the pile on the sled and pass them to the stringer, one bunch of 3 leaves on one side of the stick and one bunch of 3 on the other. The Stringer looped the string over the stems of the tobacco leaves, securing them on either side of the stick. The passer and the stringer developed a nice rhythm and could go pretty fast. I prided myself on being a good passer and pretty fast Stringer too. I remember feeling really proud of myself when my grandmother said I could be a Stringer instead of just a picker or a passer. Lol After the tobacco stick was full of strung leaves, there was a cutter on the string holder, you'd cut the thread and you or someone assigned to, would carry your strung stick of leaves to be laid down on a flatbed wagon. The wagon was then pulled by a mule or tractor to a tobacco barn. Men would climb up into the barn rafters, rafters that were made perfectly spaced to support the sticks strung with tobacco leaves. We'd pass the sticks up to the men and they'd be passed up higher into the tops of the tobacco barns. I really hated passing those sticks up to the men, they were heavy and there was an art to holding them just right so the tobacco wouldn't slide. Also dirt from the leaves would fall and get into your eyes. It was pretty awful. I got in big trouble once for refusing to do it, I was forced to do it anyway, my grandmother got a broom after me and swatted and poked me out of the house and down to the barn. Lol There was an art to how many leaves to a stick, how close the sticks were together up in the barn rafters, how much moisture was in the barn, how hot the burners were in the barn, etc.. I remember the men checking on the barns often. At some point I remember the tobacco was ready to be twisted into these shapes, like knots but that must've been when I was very young, I don't remember that being done when I was a teen. I never was on the farm past late Summer or early Fall. I always had to go home at that point to go to school, so I'm not sure how the tobacco was prepped to go to market. I know it was not in placed hogsheads like in the olden days though. One of the last times I helped with the harvest, instead of stringing the tobacco by hand my grandmother had purchased a stringing machine, a terrible thing possibly made in hell, I hated it. I had to lay down a bed of bunches of 3 leaves of tobacco, top those with a stick and the next person added a top layer of leaves. All of this was happening on a moving conveyor belt and at the end the leaves were sewn on the stick. I remember hating it because every time we got a good rhythm going my grandmother would speed the machine up. It was much less enjoyable than the old method, plus the machine was noisy. Stringing was no longer plesant at all. Working in tobacco was hot, sweaty dirty work. Sweat bees stung us, the sun burned our skin, our hands would be coated in tobacco tar, best way to get rid of that was to get a handful of sandy dirt to scrub the tar off. I used to help top the tobacco and pull off suckers too. We were also encouraged to pull off any tobacco worms that had survived whatever pesticides had been used on the crop, I hated them, big fat green worms, ugh. I used to like going out to work in the field before it was too hot back when a mule pulled the tobacco slide and we strung by hand. My grandmother always fixed a really nice lunch for us on days we were harvesting. My sister and I were free labor during the summers. About once a week we got to ride along to the country store and get a coke and a candy bar or a coke and a pack of peanuts to pour into the coke, our reward for helping. We also helped in the dairy barn, helped with the chickens, the orchard, the truck and kitchen gardens. It was a lot of hard work but we were well fed and slept like babies each night.
Wow Hanna, thank you for writing such an interesting and detailed account of how you guys did tobacco down there. It sounds like they were maybe growing cigar tobacco, Maryland tobacco was used exclusively for cigarets, because of its burning characteristics.We'ed love to hear more if you think of anything.
@@so.md.dirtfarmer2226 Hi Bill I think Hanna at one point referred to twisting the tobacco. That would be plug tobacco or rope tobacco, if I got that right. We had a neighbor, originally from the SW point of Virginia, that chewed what he called plug tobacco, a rope lookin figure eight thing.He'd pull out a pocketknife and saw off an inch or a little less. It was interesting to a 15 year old kid. He worked 30 years at a GM plant up here, built a house and all,but he had a farm ready and went back the week he retired.
We raised, topped, suckered, cut, speared, hauled, hung and stripped tobacco just like that in Northern KY. Those were long, hard, hot days on the farm. Tobacco was the primary crop on our family farm.
Been there done that, laid miles of sticks as my first job, and it was a huge deal to be entrusted with one of the tobacco knives. I want to grow a few row for my boys next year.
I grew up on a Holstein farm in northern Montgomery county Maryland. I found some of those corn spears yesterday going through some old tools of my grandparents. Pretty neat! found four of em! ✌🇺🇸
Just wanted to say how much respect I have for you sir.... I thought working in modern day flue cured was bad. That dark tobacco as we call it is on a different level
Yep, toppin and suckerin. That’s what happened in my day back in North Florida. The came croppin. Never did a lot of that part myself. Had two big sale barns in town and I remember racking and then later pulling racks to build the bundles to send to the sale barn. Never did it the old way in the big barns, but we had those huge old tobacco barns all over the. Always had those wood tobacco sticks laying around that we’d use for about everything, especially tomato stakes 😁😁. I see most of those old barns falling down these days. Grew working on cars in one of those old barns. When I came up we used the metal bulk barns for drying with the racks
We’re going hay here in middle Georgia rounds and squares The squares will keep you in good shape but put a hurting on ya for a while Always interesting to see and hear how it is done back in the day Thanks
Down here in St Mary's got so we only 4 on a stick if ya had good bacca did my share still kina miss some of it never took the buyout never know could plant some again
In Central Kentucky we cut the tobacco and place it on the stick at the same time by jobbing the stick down in the ground behind us. Western KY does it like you all, but they mostly raise alot of dark tobacco. East TN apparently does it like you all too. Look up 'Garrard County Tobacco Cutting Competition', those boys can cut and spear.
I’m from wv we called it spudding and we called them Spuds I’ve never heard it called spears we still got over 8000 hand split tobacco sticks in tje barn we raised around ten acres for almost a century nice video
Love your videos I used to Prime tobacco myself we had machines to ride on Ontario Canada used to be a lot of tobacco farms not so much no more good videos I'm a John Deere man 2 I like the tractor pulls
Liberal Maryland didn't like being known for tobacco so they offered a buyout to tobacco farmers with good terms & over 90% took it. That's why you no longer see it everywhere.
Hello sir, would love to try growing some tobacco on my small farm someday. Are deer interested in eating tobacco plants?😅 I have to keep my vegetable fields fenced in or the deer will mow everything down. Thank you.
I have never seen a deer with a chaw of tobacco in his mouth! Seriously, deer typically don't touch it, cut worms, tobacco worms, and aphids are what you need to watch out for.
A little back story on that. Years ago, before all the Chemicals, every cigarette had to have about 10% Maryland tobacco in it or it would go out when you set it down. Europe was a big buyer of our tobacco.
Thank you for making this. I am the last generation of Trott family from southern Anne Arundel to have lived this until the buyout.
I remember going to school each September and the teacher would ask kids what they did over their summer. They would say things like “went to the beach” or “went to camp” or even the occasional “went to Disney World”. I despised those question and answer sessions because my summers were spent very differently.
Monday through Saturday started with “two down and one back”. The only joy I could find would be when I drove the tractor as we loaded it up. If I could time it right, I could pop the clutch enough to throw whoever was on the trailer off, and I got pretty good at faking an apology. Karma would catch me a little later when we put it up in the barn, as I was always the trailer man and passing it up to everyone above me. The drips of sweat didn’t seem to bother me, but every now and then I wouldn’t duck low enough and the poles would knock me off my feet as I banged my head on them.
The middle of the day break for lunch felt like Thanksgiving every day. My grandmother cooked some of the most delicious meals I have ever had (probably because I was so worn out by lunch). As good as it tasted, it never seemed to sit right in my stomach as I would lay on the trailer afterwards in the heat of the sun. It would feel like I was in a literal food coma, with no possible way I could get the energy back up to keep cutting. I can still feel the splintered wood on my back, as I lay on the trailer listening to the hum and buzz of locusts/cicadas. The sun felt inescapable.
I hated it as a kid. My Dad said he did too. I told him I never wanted to grow up and do it, and he told me that he used to say that too. I guess I’m the first one to be able to stick to my word.
It is a strange feeling to miss being so miserable, but I would trade 100 days of today’s comfort for just one day of the misery back then.
As the people pass on from this earth, so do the stories and memories of how things used to be. Thank you for giving me more than just a “back in my day” story to share with my kids. God Bless.
Valuable Utilitarian Information for the Layman - Thank You
When I was a young teenager I used to help my grandfather on his farm and an uncle on another farm get their tobacco in. This was in South Central Virginia. They did a completely different method than what you have described. We had these things called slides or sleds, basically a base on runners with ends made of wood with sides made of feed sacks sewn onto poles, these sides could be folded up or down. The slides were pulled by a mule in the early years but later on pulled by a tractor down the rows of tobacco plants. If you were a picker you would go into the field and pick the tobacco starting with the lower leaves, you'd be shown the color and size of leaves to pick. You picked the bottom leaves first because those were 'ripe' and large and ready to pick. If you wanted all of your tobacco to be a really high grade you'd pick only the leaves that were ready and lay them them into the tobacco slide, all in the same direction. I think I remember holding the leaves under my left arm until the slide would be close or I had too many leaves to manage. The slide was pulled along the row as we worked. Once full it was pulled to an area where people, usually women and girls, were doing what was called passing and stringing. There would be a tobacco stick placed on a stand at the end of which was a ball of white string. To string the tobacco a passer would quickly take 3 leaves off of the pile on the sled and pass them to the stringer, one bunch of 3 leaves on one side of the stick and one bunch of 3 on the other. The Stringer looped the string over the stems of the tobacco leaves, securing them on either side of the stick. The passer and the stringer developed a nice rhythm and could go pretty fast. I prided myself on being a good passer and pretty fast Stringer too. I remember feeling really proud of myself when my grandmother said I could be a Stringer instead of just a picker or a passer. Lol After the tobacco stick was full of strung leaves, there was a cutter on the string holder, you'd cut the thread and you or someone assigned to, would carry your strung stick of leaves to be laid down on a flatbed wagon. The wagon was then pulled by a mule or tractor to a tobacco barn. Men would climb up into the barn rafters, rafters that were made perfectly spaced to support the sticks strung with tobacco leaves. We'd pass the sticks up to the men and they'd be passed up higher into the tops of the tobacco barns. I really hated passing those sticks up to the men, they were heavy and there was an art to holding them just right so the tobacco wouldn't slide. Also dirt from the leaves would fall and get into your eyes. It was pretty awful. I got in big trouble once for refusing to do it, I was forced to do it anyway, my grandmother got a broom after me and swatted and poked me out of the house and down to the barn. Lol
There was an art to how many leaves to a stick, how close the sticks were together up in the barn rafters, how much moisture was in the barn, how hot the burners were in the barn, etc.. I remember the men checking on the barns often. At some point I remember the tobacco was ready to be twisted into these shapes, like knots but that must've been when I was very young, I don't remember that being done when I was a teen. I never was on the farm past late Summer or early Fall. I always had to go home at that point to go to school, so I'm not sure how the tobacco was prepped to go to market. I know it was not in placed hogsheads like in the olden days though. One of the last times I helped with the harvest, instead of stringing the tobacco by hand my grandmother had purchased a stringing machine, a terrible thing possibly made in hell, I hated it. I had to lay down a bed of bunches of 3 leaves of tobacco, top those with a stick and the next person added a top layer of leaves. All of this was happening on a moving conveyor belt and at the end the leaves were sewn on the stick. I remember hating it because every time we got a good rhythm going my grandmother would speed the machine up. It was much less enjoyable than the old method, plus the machine was noisy. Stringing was no longer plesant at all. Working in tobacco was hot, sweaty dirty work. Sweat bees stung us, the sun burned our skin, our hands would be coated in tobacco tar, best way to get rid of that was to get a handful of sandy dirt to scrub the tar off. I used to help top the tobacco and pull off suckers too. We were also encouraged to pull off any tobacco worms that had survived whatever pesticides had been used on the crop, I hated them, big fat green worms, ugh. I used to like going out to work in the field before it was too hot back when a mule pulled the tobacco slide and we strung by hand. My grandmother always fixed a really nice lunch for us on days we were harvesting. My sister and I were free labor during the summers. About once a week we got to ride along to the country store and get a coke and a candy bar or a coke and a pack of peanuts to pour into the coke, our reward for helping. We also helped in the dairy barn, helped with the chickens, the orchard, the truck and kitchen gardens. It was a lot of hard work but we were well fed and slept like babies each night.
Wow Hanna, thank you for writing such an interesting and detailed account of how you guys did tobacco down there. It sounds like they were maybe growing cigar tobacco, Maryland tobacco was used exclusively for cigarets, because of its burning characteristics.We'ed love to hear more if you think of anything.
@@so.md.dirtfarmer2226 Hi Bill I think Hanna at one point referred to twisting the tobacco. That would be plug tobacco or rope tobacco, if I got that right. We had a neighbor, originally from the SW point of Virginia, that chewed what he called plug tobacco, a rope lookin figure eight thing.He'd pull out a pocketknife and saw off an inch or a little less. It was interesting to a 15 year old kid. He worked 30 years at a GM plant up here, built a house and all,but he had a farm ready and went back the week he retired.
@@57fitter Interesting!
great story of old tobacco days thanka for sharing
Learned alot, great storyteller
Great video a lot of hard work enjoy thanks for sharing it be safe .
Awesome video. Love the knowledge.
We raised, topped, suckered, cut, speared, hauled, hung and stripped tobacco just like that in Northern KY. Those were long, hard, hot days on the farm. Tobacco was the primary crop on our family farm.
Hey Rod! That work will make a real man of you if it don't kill you.😄
Been there done that, laid miles of sticks as my first job, and it was a huge deal to be entrusted with one of the tobacco knives. I want to grow a few row for my boys next year.
I grow pumpkins in corn very fascinating. How tobacco grows good video. And I love Tractor church God bless.
Thanks Jim!
I miss those days!
Hard work but happy memories!
I grew up on a Holstein farm in northern Montgomery county Maryland. I found some of those corn spears yesterday going through some old tools of my grandparents. Pretty neat! found four of em! ✌🇺🇸
Just wanted to say how much respect I have for you sir.... I thought working in modern day flue cured was bad. That dark tobacco as we call it is on a different level
Yep, toppin and suckerin. That’s what happened in my day back in North Florida. The came croppin. Never did a lot of that part myself. Had two big sale barns in town and I remember racking and then later pulling racks to build the bundles to send to the sale barn. Never did it the old way in the big barns, but we had those huge old tobacco barns all over the. Always had those wood tobacco sticks laying around that we’d use for about everything, especially tomato stakes 😁😁. I see most of those old barns falling down these days. Grew working on cars in one of those old barns. When I came up we used the metal bulk barns for drying with the racks
Thanks Mike for sharing your memories.
That is very interesting I’ve never seen nobody do tobacco good video
Glad you enjoyed it
We’re going hay here in middle Georgia rounds and squares
The squares will keep you in good shape but put a hurting on ya for a while
Always interesting to see and hear how it is done back in the day
Thanks
Very interesting, thanks for sharing.
Glad you enjoyed it! You may enjoy my other videos, check them out. Your channel looks very interesting also.
Yep... You sure make me miss Aquasco and Benedict but not that tobacco or those damn tobacco barns ! Merry Christmas to you Southern Maryland Farmer.
Thanks, hope you have a great Christmas season!
Thank you. Great film. Reminds me of filling barns with hay.
Yeah, both hot, sweaty jobs.
Down here in St Mary's got so we only 4 on a stick if ya had good bacca did my share still kina miss some of it never took the buyout never know could plant some again
Hey Robert! great to hear from Y'all in St.Marys!
Really enjoying the videos. Keep em coming!
Very Interesting and a very well-done presentation. Cheers!
Thank you for the tobacco lessons 🙏 I never knew anything about it.
In Central Kentucky we cut the tobacco and place it on the stick at the same time by jobbing the stick down in the ground behind us. Western KY does it like you all, but they mostly raise alot of dark tobacco. East TN apparently does it like you all too. Look up 'Garrard County Tobacco Cutting Competition', those boys can cut and spear.
My parental grandfather used to raise tobacco and corn in eastern Kentucky
Really cool video.
Thanks, l appreciate your cool comment!
Now living in Pa and the Amish still grow about 5,000 acres of old fashion tobacco. Right now the barns are full.
l love the smell of a full barn.
Interesting video, growing up on a corn, bean, and wheat farm along with hogs and cattle. I’ve seen how tobacco was harvested!
Hey, thanks for taking time to comment, glad you found it interesting.
Here in mountains of North Carolina we call them spears tobacker spuds great videos on mountain farming
Love your video!
So glad you enjoyed it! Did you see my other farming videos on my channel?
@@so.md.dirtfarmer2226 I've not but will do, just subscribed 😀
@@sunset3052 😃👍👍
I’m from wv we called it spudding and we called them
Spuds I’ve never heard it called spears we still got over 8000 hand split tobacco sticks in tje barn we raised around ten acres for almost a century nice video
Spudding,... a new one on me! Some guys would call it a dart, thanks for the comment.
I think they should start growing it again in Maryland.
Have seen this done in Kentucky near Grayson on the Bledsoe Plantation.
Love your videos I used to Prime tobacco myself we had machines to ride on Ontario Canada used to be a lot of tobacco farms not so much no more good videos I'm a John Deere man 2 I like the tractor pulls
Thanks Thomas, good to hear from you!
I didnt know tobacco plants got so big
Greetings from Australia great video
Hey, thanks Sean, great to hear from Down Under!
Great explanation of tobacco growing . Good and clear . Your dad sounds like a character. 👍🇬🇧
Thank you kindly
You used to see tobacco everywhere in So. MD and Northern VA doesn't seem like you see it anymore
Liberal Maryland didn't like being known for tobacco so they offered a buyout to tobacco farmers with good terms & over 90% took it. That's why you no longer see it everywhere.
I wonder about the difference in having harvested tobacco versus processed (I did enjoy Smokeing )
One makes you healthier, the other maybe not.
I collect tobacco knives. I have a tobacco farming tool, bet you've never seen before.
Well, you'll have to show me sometime.
Hello sir, would love to try growing some tobacco on my small farm someday. Are deer interested in eating tobacco plants?😅 I have to keep my vegetable fields fenced in or the deer will mow everything down. Thank you.
I have never seen a deer with a chaw of tobacco in his mouth! Seriously, deer typically don't touch it, cut worms, tobacco worms, and aphids are what you need to watch out for.
@@so.md.dirtfarmer2226 haha, well finally something I could plant outside the fence. Nice to know👍Thank you.
How much do ya still grow pre year?
About 30 plants, just for old times sake.
@so.md.dirtfarmer2226 aha ok jw
Interesting,,,how well does it smoke without all the crap added?
A little back story on that. Years ago, before all the Chemicals, every cigarette had to have about 10% Maryland tobacco in it or it would go out when you set it down. Europe was a big buyer of our tobacco.
@so.md.dirtfarmer2226 It's not necessarily the tobacco that's bad,,,all the dopey additives.