Family Tradition

A good stretch back, maybe three or four months ago I was asked to take over my grandpa’s tobacco fields. Now that’s grandpa Jasper Bertrand from my momma Lisette’s side. I guess tobacco has been in my family since damn near the time it came to this part of the country. My daddy told my cousin Hazel that we probably even had kin on the ship that that Walter Raleigh feller was on. Uncle Cecil said he figured Raleigh was the one responsible for tobacco being in Carolina in the first place…. and I don’t guess I’ve ever known Uncle Cecil to lie. He’s stretched the truth a time or two, but never so far as to make something untrue.

I’ve had a devil of a time deciding whether or not to get tied up in this whole tobacco farming business. Years ago it might’ve been an easier decision because things were done by hand. I guess the work was harder but it seemed simpler in nature. With the year now being 1956 a lot has changed in the industry. Hell, it seems like hand labor are dirty words and people act like they’ve never even seen a goddamn mule. It seems to me that nine hundred man hours to work and cultivate an acre is still movin’ pretty datgum fast. On a good day you can beat that record. I’ve seen it done.

I guess my biggest fuss comes from the farming industry now being run by a bunch of kids who’ve never had their hands in the soil. All they seem to care about is how to save that next penny. When it comes down to it, tractor or no a season is still gonna be a full year.

The seed beds have to be prepared by early January and planted in February. Then you have to stake the ground and cover it in linen. If the weather holds out the earliest you can transplant to the field is April 1st. But depending on the weather is like telling God your plans. It’s only worth the laugh. I know that the work of a John Deere is cleaner, but it still can’t match the work done by three experienced farm hands. All you need is one guy to make a hole in the furrow with a hand peg, another guy to place the seedling in the hole and one more to water and fertilize it. As far as those pesky horn worms are concerned, my three year old could do that in an afternoon and I don’t even have a three year old.

When it comes down to it, tobacco farming requires four things. You gotta harvest it, you gotta tie it, you gotta barn it and you gotta watch the furnace. All in all tobacco has one ingredient….tradition. Or maybe I’m just scared of the future.