Thursday, October 04, 2007

Tobacco Barns

Examples of Kentucky's famous tobacco barns



Burley barn

I like these red barns that sit on the Edwards Mill Road in Christian County, and I've photographed them before. Both have burley tobacco air-drying in them right now.


Burley barn

Here's a closer look at burley tobacco, curing in a barn that hasn't seen paint for many a year, if ever. Burley is used mostly for cigarettes. If you look closely, you can see how the sticks, loaded with tobacco plants, are laid across "tiers" in the barn.

Tobacco barn

This is one of our neighbor's barns. It was looking gray and delapidated until he put metal siding on it about 8 or 10 years ago. They have been firing tobacco in it, but I didn't see any smoke oozing out of the eaves today. Maybe no one had tended it yet today.

I've been seeing lots of these metal hex signs on barns lately. My theory is that one of the farm stores is selling them.

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3 comments:

Marathon Pundit said...

I wasn't aware tobacco barns were still used. Nice photo.

Genevieve Netz said...

Hi, John. It is true that less tobacco is grown nowadays and some barns are no longer used.

It is also true that many barns are still used each fall for curing tobacco.

If you pass through Kentucky at a time of the year when the barns are empty, it's pretty hard to guess which are still used and which are not.

Tudorw said...

Love the photo! Looks like days gone by. How old are these barns? The red color is much like the ochre color of our fishing room (sheds). The red color of an utilitarian out building must have universal significance or maybe that's the only color paint that was available.

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