Autumn Images

Seen in Christian County, KY

There's plenty of time to take a picture, when following a buggy uphill. They are extremely slow, but I never pass them on a hill, even if I'm in a terrible hurry. I figure that it's better to be a few minutes late than to risk a collision. However, I often see impatient drivers who pass without a clue of what's coming in the other lane.

Tobacco is curing in the barns of Christian County, KY. This old barn, built right beside a back road, is always closed tight, with a "No Trespassing" sign on the doors. When I drove by last week, I was surprised to see its doors opened wide.

This clump of trees in the middle of a Christian County field probably marks an old family graveyard. It's sad that so many old cemeteries receive no care at all, but when the families are unavailable, unable, or uninterested, the burden of upkeep falls on the landowner. Most farmers adopt an attitude of benign neglect, and nature takes its course.

Autumn color in Hopkinsville (KY). Some people around the county have reported heavy frost, but we haven't had a killing frost at our house yet. I still have impatiens blooming, though their days are surely numbered.

And who's that crowding into the picture with the impatiens? Why, it's Sophie, of course, doing her best to be the center of attention. I'm in the process of building an elaborate doghouse for her. It has two rooms, and it's better insulated than our house is! I am not a very fast carpenter, so it's still going to require a couple more days of work. And it's so heavy that I'm thinking we might put it in the truck and drive it to the carport, instead of trying to carry it.

Early Fall in Christian County, KY

Seen around the county during the last month

A nearly-dry stream bed in late September.

Now, the water is probably full of fallen leaves.

A full barn of tobacco, curing
in the fresh country air.

Dad and kids, headed home
from the produce auction

The northern part of Christian County has dozens

(or hundreds?) of small fields like this one, where the

ground is flat enough to farm between hills and streams.
This is corn, drying in the field before harvest.

The shorter flowers are members of the aster family,

and the taller ones are ironweed, as I recall.

Last spring, these were wheatfields.

Now, they're beanfields (soybeans). 

This complex west of Hopkinsville

has about a dozen tobacco barns in it.

The smoke can get heavy when
the barns are being fired.

A horseless carriage, so to speak

Late afternoon sunshine on a 

field of ripening soybeans

The sun is setting much earlier now. 

I saw this gorgeous sunset on my

way home from work one night.

Keely and I went to an interesting moving 

sale at this house in Hopkinsville. 

The seller had lots of cool, collectible stuff.

At the Farmers Market in 

downtown Hopkinsville

Old, Empty Tobacco Barns

Common sight in Christian County, KY

Dozens of old tobacco barns like this one can be seen across Christian County, KY. Some stand along roads that are (more or less) traveled. Others can be glimpsed on the back sides of fields and at the edges of woods, where farmers and hunters pass only occasionally.

Some of these aged barns remain in use by tobacco growers, but many of them stand empty year-round. The empty barns illustrate two trends in Christian County agriculture.

•  In the past, every tobacco barn or two might have represented a small farm and a farm family. Today, we have far fewer small farms. More and more, Christian County's tobacco is raised on larger farms.  
• Less tobacco is produced now than in the past, and less barn space is needed to cure the crop.

A 2004 USDA report, "Trends in U.S. Tobacco Farming",  says that Kentucky dropped from 136,000 tobacco-growing farms in 1954 to 29,000 such farms in 2002.

The report gives the following overview of changes in U.S. tobacco production:

The number of farms growing tobacco has declined rapidly during the last 50 years. From 1997 to 2002, farm numbers declined by a larger percentage than in any other 5-year period since 1950. Acreage and production both declined due to smaller quotas. The trend toward fewer larger farms will likely continue, but the future rate of change and location of production will depend on several factors: the impact of the tobacco buyout, U.S. and world consumption of tobacco, and alternative crop and off-farm income opportunities for tobacco growers.

Source: "Trends in U.S. Tobacco Farming", published in 2004 by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.

Tobacco Field

Summer in Christian County, KY

I don't know if the dead-looking leaves at the base of these tobacco plants have been caused by the dry, hot weather, or if the plants are suffering from some disease or fungus. A lot of the corn around Christian County has been damaged by lack of rain, but tobacco is usually a little more drought-resistant than corn.

Tobacco Curing in the Barn

A familiar autumn scene in Kentucky

This barn has tobacco hanging in it, visible through the doors. This is almost certainly burley tobacco, a variety that has light colored leaves; however, dark tobacco is sometimes air-cured also. The curing process typically lasts for a couple of months, It creates a dried leaf that is high in nicotine and low in sugar. When the weather gets a little colder, farmers will be removing the leaves from the stalks, packing and binding them into bales, and sending the finished product to the factory.

Update: This afternoon, I saw a farmer in his pickup truck, pulling a big trailer-load of tobacco stems. So that means that tobacco stripping is already under way.

A Bad Year for Blue Mold

Wet weather a problem for tobacco growers.

Frequent rains have kept our part of Kentucky much wetter than usual for this time of the year. Temperatures have been cooler than normal.  The weather conditions have created a pleasantly green look to the countryside that's unusual for the 12th of August. Dennis has been mowing the yard at least once a week since April.

Unfortunately, the cool, wet summer has also been favorable for the growth of blue mold, a tobacco disease. Tobacco growers have been urged to monitor their fields carefully, because the mold spores drift on the lightest breeze.

If caught early enough, the spread of the disease in a field can be limited with treatments of fungicide. Such chemicals are expensive, but it's better than losing the entire crop. Leaves that have been damaged with blue mold are worthless.

Blue mold overwinters in the tropics where it infects winter-grown tobacco and native Nicotiana species. When summer weather systems carry the mold spores into our area and the conditions are favorable, the spores grow.

Blue mold really likes damp, cool, summer weather, lots of fog, and/or a field that is low-lying or shaded. Most years, blue mold shows up somewhere in Kentucky, but when we have a typical, hot, dry summer, the disease usually doesn't become an epidemic.

I suspect that the field of tobacco in the photograph has blue mold. It definitely is diseased; the leaves are wilting. I was shocked when I drove by and saw the plants in such a condition. Just a few weeks before, I had photographed the same field, and the tobacco was tall, lush, and very green.

An Old Barn Falls

I told you so.

Fall of 2007

A couple of years ago, I wrote that I was surprised this barn had tobacco hung all the way to the top in it. I hoped they had checked the old barn's stability before climbing to the top tier with heavy tobacco-laden sticks because the barn was in poor repair.

Sometime after that, an angry man from eastern Kentucky wrote an impassioned comment on that post. He said that falling out of the tops of barns was just part of growing tobacco. I, an ignoramus, should mind my own business because I knew nothing about barns, tobacco, or farming. He added a number of obscenities for emphasis.

He may have been right (I don't know a whole lot about tobacco farming), but nevertheless, the barn collapsed sometime recently, probably in one of the wind storms. Or maybe the farmer pushed it over. Anyhow, nobody will be hanging tobacco in it anymore.

Spring of 2009

Signs of Fall in Christian County

Harvest of gold

One of the neighbors was harvesting a cornfield yesterday. Two massive combines were stopped in the field with their hoppers full when I paused on the road to photograph them.

After I took the picture, I decided to extend my pause for a few more moments. Two huge tractors towing grain wagons were returning to the field after emptying their loads of corn. They needed about 2/3 of the roadway, so I waited for them to pull into the field before I motored onward.

It was nice to see the corn kernels glistening in the sunshine like heaps of gold. In this part of the county, we had enough summer rain that our corn did well. Now, we've had a couple of months with no rain at all, and the corn should be drying out nicely on the stalk. The farmer will get a better price for low-moisture corn if he's selling it now. Or, if he's holding the corn in his own bins for a while, he won't have to run his grain dryers as long.

Autumn is manifesting itself in other ways as well. I noticed this week that a few leaves are falling from the trees when the wind blows. The Christian Way Farm has opened for the season.

And a big tobacco barn on the Pembroke Road (Highway 41) burned down today. Even though it appears to have been a metal barn, the report on the Kentucky New Era website says it was a total loss. A season's work and income went up in smoke for some farmer, and he lost his barn as well. Sadly enough, a few barns burn every fall. That's one of the hazards of fire-curing tobacco.

A Smoking Tobacco Barn

Firing begins.

Our neighbor's barn is full of tobacco, and now he's firing (fire-curing) the tobacco.

Inside the barn, sawdust is smoldering in trenches or a pit on the barn floor. A pile of sawdust stands ready between the barn and the highway. Hardwood slabs are usually burned along with the sawdust. If you are curious about the process, the University of Kentucky document, Harvesting, Curing, and Preparing Dark-Fired Tobacco for Market (pdf), is a good summary of the science of fire-curing.

Tonight the wind is carrying the smoke our way. We have some windows open this evening, and we can smell the smoke in the house. I don't enjoy the odor, so I closed the windows on the side that the breeze was coming through, and that helped.

Tobacco firing doesn't last too long. In a few weeks, this will be over. Before then, the wind will switch again and the smoke will blow somewhere else.

Related post: New Tobacco Barn
On the web: Image of the smoke-filled interior of a tobacco barn:1

New Tobacco Barn

Tobacco harvest has begun

Our neighbor tore down a rickety old wooden barn and put up this handsome new pole barn last spring. He has begun harvesting his tobacco, and as you can see through the open doors, he's filling the barn.

The following is gossip, because I didn't see it with my own eyes. I heard it from another neighbor. As the tobacco was loaded into the barn and the weight inside the building increased, the soil began breaking away from a corner pole on the opposite side of the building. Perhaps the dirt was not compacted enough after it was bulldozed into place.

When I passed by the barn just a few minutes after hearing the story, I saw a ready-mix truck pouring out concrete at one corner of the barn. I hope that solved the problem, whatever it was.

Tobacco Barns

Examples of Kentucky's famous tobacco barns

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.




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.



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.

Technorati tags: tobacco barns, Kentucky barns, old barns

Bad Day

Usually, it could be worse...

Just to improve your outlook on life a little, here are a couple of photos of someone else's bad day.

This big trailer, loaded down with tobacco, was on the way to the barn when one of its tires went flat. By the time the driver got it off the highway, something -- probably the wheel -- was leaving a deep track in the road surface.

On the bright side, at least there was a fairly flat spot to pull over. And at least, it wasn't an inside dual!

The driver jacked up the corner of the trailer, took off the remains of the old tire, unhitched his pickup truck, and went somewhere to get a replacement.

The trailer was still there when I passed by again, but it was gone the next day.

Everyone has frustrating days when Murphy's Law prevails. Even here in the Shire, things don't always go as smoothly as we wish they would.

Technorati tags: bad day, Murphy's law, tobacco harvest, flat tire

New Barns near Fairview, KY

No old barns here...

The barn on the right was built recently and is already filled with burley tobacco. You can see the tobacco leaves hanging down below the side walls. That barn should have very good air flow with all sides open at the bottom.

I'm not sure what the other barn will be, but I am guessing (only guessing!) that it might be a curing barn for dark tobacco. In dark barns, a smoky sawdust and hardwood-slab fire is kept burning on the barn's floor. As the smoke rises through the tobacco leaves, they are flavored and colored.

These barns are located near Fairview, Kentucky. I think they're still in Christian County, but just barely.

Technorati tags: tobacco barns, barn construction, farm buildings

Two Old Tobacco Barns

Old barns can be hazardous.

This time of the year, many of the old barns along the rural roads of western Kentucky are put to use. They are tobacco barns, constructed with "tiers" (horizontal braces) that support the tobacco-laden sticks.

I shuddered when I saw the barn above loaded with tobacco to its very top. The old barn isn't in very good shape. Its board siding is springing loose and curling up and it's got some kind of problem with its roof (left side.) I hope they checked to see if the timbers of the barn were still solid before they started filling the barn.

I know a fellow who was on the top tier of a barn, laying out the sticks of tobacco as they were handed up to him. The tier broke and he fell to the barn floor, breaking his leg terribly. He is a big guy and he probably shouldn't have been up there, but it does illustrate how dangerous an old barn can be.

Technorati tags: tobacco harvest, tobacco barns, tobacco barn pictures

Tobacco Harvest Hasn't Changed Much

Tobacco harvesting, curing, stripping methods described in 1923 are essentially unchanged today.

My 1923 agriculture textbook has an entire chapter on growing tobacco. At that time, tobacco was America's eighth most valuable field crop. About 1/3 of that crop came from Kentucky. Other tobacco-growing states, in order of importance, included North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Maryland, and Connecticut.

Except for using tractors nowadays to take the wagons to the barns, tobacco harvesting procedures have changed very little in the last 80+ years. Even the scaffold wagon pictured in my old book looks very similar to that used today, except for the mule.

Kary Cadmus Davis, Ph. D. (Cornell), the author of , The New Agriculture for High Schools, wrote the following description of tobacco harvesting in the early 1920s.

HARVESTING THE WHOLE PLANTS

Most tobacco in this country is harvested by splitting the stalk from the top to within a few inches of the ground. Then the stalk is cut off near the ground and is placed on a lath or "stick," running the lath through the split. These laths, when loaded, are placed across racks made for hauling the tobacco and are taken to curing barn or scaffolds. The tobacco should be allowed to wilt somewhat before being placed on laths and loaded on the wagon as it bruises much more easily when the leaves are crisp.

Ripeness of tobacco is indicated by the feel of the leaves, by the brittlesness of the veins when folded between the fingers, and by the slight yellowing of leaves. Frost in northern states often determines the time of harvesting as the crop must be in before frost.

CURING

There are three main types of curing tobacco: air curing, open-fire curing, and flue curing. Air curing is accomplished in specially constructed tobacco barns having ventilators up and down all sides. Open-fire or open hearth curing is accomplished in barns without special ventilation and is used chiefly for dark type of tobacco. Flue curing is in barns similar to the last but with more ventilation at the top, the circulation being caused by the heat. Flues conveying the hot smoke run through the barns.

Several weeks are required to complete the curing process, by any of the methods. Much study and experience is required to conduct the work successfully. All tobacco barns are provided with timbers and supports on which tobacco laths are placed.

STRIPPING

When tobacco has been cured on the stalk, the next step is stripping, which consists in removing the leaves from the stalks. This should be done on moist days in early winter when the leaves are in proper "case." If too dry, they would be damaged by cracking and breaking. If they are becoming slightly to dry to "bulk," they are sometimes moistened a little, but it is better to have the leaves in natural condition with enough moisture present without adding any. They must be neither too wet nor too dry when in bulk.

GRADING

During the stripping and bulking of tobacco leaves, they are sorted into three, four, or five grades, depending upon the type of tobacco. Leaves of any one grade are tied into small bundles and these into larger ones, according to the type of tobacco...

Source: The New Agriculture for High Schools by Kary Cadmus Davis, Ph. D., published by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, in 1923. From the chapter titled "Tobacco Products" (p. 223-224.)

Here, I'll end the quote, because the marketing is done differently nowadays. The old book describes the large tobacco warehouses and loose-leaf auctions of times goneby. Around Hopkinsville, many of these old warehouses can still be seen, but they are no longer used and tobacco auctions are no longer held. Most tobacco leaf is bought in the field by tobacco companies.



Pictured above: a trailer loaded with pallets of laths (sticks) for spearing the cut tobacco plants. In the foreground, sticks with tobacco plants have been stood up in the sun so the tobacco can wilt before going to the barn.



Pictured above: A scaffold wagon, loaded with tobacco and ready to be pulled to the barn. The laths are laid across a framework and the plants hang down. In the barns, the laths will be laid across "tiers" of wooden framework, starting at the top of the barn and working down to the floor.

Related posts:
Major Tobacco Growing Areas, 1923
Also, check the label, "tobacco"

Technorati tags: tobacco harvest, tobacco growing, tobacco farming, tobacco crop, Kentucky tobacco farming, Christian County Kentucky

Major Tobacco Growing Areas, 1923

The world's most important tobacco producing regions in the early 1920s

Millions    Nation
of Pounds   or State
---------   ---------
     470     Kentucky
     450     British India
     320     North Carolina
     220     Austria Hungary
     140     Virginia
     130     Java
      95     Japan
      90     Tennessee
      80     South Carolina
      75     Ohio
      74     Germany
      72     Turkey (European)
      65     Philippine Islands
      60     Wisconsin
      59     Brazil
      58     Cuba
      55     Pennsylvania
      48     Sumatra
      42     Connecticut
      40     San Domingo
      35     Maryland
      25     Georgia
      22     Massachusetts
      20     Indiana
      18     West Virginia
      10     Florida

Source: The New Agriculture for High Schools by Kary Cadmus Davis, Ph. D., published by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, in 1923. From the chapter titled "Tobacco Products" (p. 218.)

Technorati tag: history of tobacco

Tobacco harvest has begun

Drought has affected this year's tobacco crop

Dark and burley tobacco in a Christian County, KY, field

Tobacco harvest has begun in Christian County. The cutting down of the plants is underway in some fields, and in some fields, it is already finished. Trucks and tractors are pulling trailers of tobacco to the barns where it will be hung to dry and cure. The country roads are busy with the transport of the harvest.

Tobacco has some tolerance for dry weather, but this year's plants are noticably smaller than last year's. The drought didn't kill the plants, but the pounds of tobacco harvested will be affected.

Though you can't see from this viewpoint, this field was being cut at the time I stopped to take this photo. Near the house, in the field of burley (light green) tobacco, a line of men with big knives was moving across the field, cutting the plants. Then the plants are hung on sticks and stood up in the field to wilt for a while before they are taken to the barns.

I've written a lot about tobacco farming in Christian County, and have posted quite a few photos. If you're interested, click the label, "tobacco."

Technorati Tags: tobacco, tobacco farming, tobacco harvest, Kentucky tobacco, Christian County Kentucky

Final Event of the Tobacco Year

Life in Christian County, Kentucky...

The last step of the tobacco harvest is to discard the stalks of the plants. By now, the leaves have been removed, baled and shipped, and next year's plants are already being started in greenhouses.

Shredded tobacco stalks and leaf stems are said to be a good bedding for birds (chickens, pigeons, etc.) that repels mites. Research has been done about using the stalks to make paper products. But around here, I think most of the stalks end up like those in the photo above.

Farmers usually spread the stalks in a field that won't have tobacco grown in it soon. This is a good practice because the stalks can provide an overwintering place for hornworms, flea beetles, or other insect pests. There's also the chance that the stalks may harbor a mildew or mold that's harmful to tobacco plants.

Tobacco stalks benefit the soil where they are spread. They contain nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and other nutrients that can be picked up and used by living plants. Some farmers keep the stalks inside until spring, because the nutrients in the stalk can leach away during the rainy cold months of winter.

I have mixed feelings about tobacco. I don't wish for anyone to smoke or use tobacco in any form! It's a terribly addictive and harmful substance.

But still, I have learned to respect the farmers who grow tobacco in Christian County. They work terribly hard at various stages of the crop. It takes real skill to grow a good crop of tobacco. There's a long, proud history of tobacco growing in this county.

I've photographed the tobacco crop at various stages -- click the "tobacco" label at the bottom of this post if you'd like to see and read more about tobacco farming in Christian County, KY. Also, the University of Kentucky has a great photo essay of the year of the tobacco grower.



A year ago today, I posted photos of blue sky breaking through the storm clouds.

Foggy Morning

Life in Christian County, Kentucky...

Foggy morning

The tobacco farmers love foggy mornings like this, because it brings the tobacco leaf "in order", as they say. This time of the year, they're taking the tobacco down from the barns and bringing it into the stripping room.

In the stripping room, the leaves are pulled off the stalks and put into bales. As I understand it, a damp foggy morning like this makes the leaves nicer to work with. I think they soak up just enough moisture so they don't crumble and break when handled.

The poles that this barn was built upon have apparently rotted out and been replaced with concrete piers. It stands in a damp area, just above a little creek.

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Christian County KY

Harton & Scranton Tobacco Warehouse in Hopkinsville, KY

Life in Christian County, Kentucky...

The former Harton & Scranton Dark Fired Tobacco Warehouse

Someone is demolishing the old tobacco warehouse on 1st Street in Hopkinsville. The bricks are being salvaged for resale. It will be interesting to see if something is built on the lot after the debris is removed. This site is across the railroad tracks from the King Cattle Company, near the buildings that Cayce Mill Supply occupied until recently.

I was surprised at the extensive concrete foundation under this building. I suppose the site slopes toward Little River which runs nearby. The builder couldn't pour a concrete slab like most of the old tobacco warehouses have, so he poured a strong concrete foundation and put in a plank floor. (The wooden I-beams that might be used under such a floor today hadn't been invented yet.)

Several old tobacco warehouses in Hopkinsville have been torn down recently. All of them were near the railroad between 1st and 12th Streets. Their location was chosen for ease in shipping out the tobacco by rail.

Nowadays, tobacco isn't brought to town to be auctioned and stored in warehouses like this, and tobacco isn't shipped on the railroad. A lot of Christian County's tobacco is processed right in Hopkinsville at the U.S. Tobacco plant. Buyers come to the farms while the crop is still growing to negotiate the price.

Harton & Scranton hung their sign on a sturdy pipe and planted it in concrete, and it still stands today, watching over the demolition.



I've written quite a lot about tobacco growing in Christian County, KY. I observe and write with the viewpoint of a resident who is not a native. To read more, visit this label: tobacco.

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Hopkinsville, KY
tobacco farming