TABACCA

We are in the very center of the Piedmont, which is tabacca country.  At one time it was the wealth of the state and surrounding states.  It was the main income of the early members of the church here.  There are still members of our ward who this is their lively hood.  They call our chapel, "the church tabacca built."

 We have grown to love one of the members here and he has let us see most phases of the growth.  We missed the planting but will try to fill you in on it.

It is started in a greenhouse and each seed is put into a tray with 143 other seeds.  They are planted by hand.
When the plant is a few inches high it is taken to the field and placed in a planting machine.  Each plant must be placed to plant by hand in the machine.  Earlier this had to be done entirely by hand and was very back-breaking.  It is still a long process.

packin down the seeds

                                                 the greenhouse

The planter, four men go at the same time.

The farmers rely mostly on rain for the irrigation.  Robert uses water from the ponds to water his when it is so dry.  It was a very dry season this year.  We filmed different stages of the growin to show what it looks like.

We were excited to spend a P-Day with our member and see just how hard the people work to bring in the crop.  The weather is in the high 90's and even in the 100's.  The hard part is the humidity which in the 80's.  It's miserable just watching.

Notice how tall this tabacca is .  Most is not this good.  He is a good farmer.

Priming or pulling tobacco comes next.  You do not take the plant but only te lowest leaves.  They will prime a field 3 or sometimes 4 times till all the tabacca is gone.

Do you believe how high this crop is?

Can you find dad?

Dad primin'

After the wagon is full they take it to the barn.

Here it is put into a box to be spread out lightly so the air can freely go through it.  All these workers are legal.  They come for 6 months every year from Mexico.  Bro. Lewis has built them a home.  They send their earnings home to their families.  They were so very nice to us and so happy  Bro. Lewis has offered jobs to the men around here but they don't want to do that kind of work.These men work very hard and make good pay.

                                     
                                      iron rods are stuck through the boxes to secure the leaves

   
Once the doors are closed the burners and fans are turned on for the drying.  This takes about 2 to 3 weeks.  While they are dryig more primin' goes on so that when the drying is finished more can go into the ovens.  The work is never done.

Three weeks later we went over again and learned how to bale the tabacca after the drying.

   They lay a humungous tarp over the barn floor and drive the box to it.  They  then unload the box into a huge packer or box that has a lid that pushes the leaves down packed solid  into a bale.  Each bale weighs 700 pounds.

getting it into a pile

lifting together

into the baler                   

                                                           

                                           

more loading

stomping it down  When it weighs 700 pounds it can be emptied.  

hauling the bale to the tractor

checking the bale

the loader

putting it in the semi  The truck holds 48 bales and each bale brings in $1400-$1700.

This is what the tabacca field looks like after is has been completely primed.

What a great time we had learning the tabacca farming process.  When we were finished Robert gave us each a hat which we will proudly wear.  We thank them so much for spending so much of their time to teach us.

Mon. Oct 1st  We stayed at Bro. Slughter's until after dinner as it looked quite stormy.  It rained quite hard during the night.  It commenced leaking on us & we had to get up and move our bed.  In the afternoon we walked about 7 miles to see a friend by the name of John A. Gaulden.  We arrived at his place at 5 o'clock P.M.  After eating supper we went with him to his tobacco barn &helped him tie tobacco until nine o'clock.  We then went to the home and retired

Tobacco was much harder at this time.  Here are a few pictures showing how they dried it in 1905.

After hand primin' they hand tied 3 leaves at a time onto this tabacca stick. (This is what grandpa Bayles did this evening in his story.)  We found this old tabacca barn  while looking for a less active member.

After filling the stick they hung it in a special barn to dry.

These are the burners to keep the barn warm.

This is looking up at the ceiling so you can see how high they hung it. It was so much harder then.