The Conklin family "Gypsy Van" built by their own American Motor Coach Company. About 1915, or so.

 

so what is the preferred plant spacing for tobacco?
I have 10 plants started that will be put in the garden at the end of may.

 

2 x 4. Plants 2' apart, rows 4' apart.

 

thanks, my rows are 34 inches, the tobacco will be a single row with nothing on either side. looks like I will plant them 2 feet apart

 

And why may I ask are you planting 10 tobacco plants? Making your own cigars?

 

 

 

I might give that a try, just seemed like a foo idea to grow some.

 

Good luck. Growing tobacco is a year long process. This summer you'll have to top them, sucker them, and weed them. Then after cutting them you'll have to hang them some where to dry. Then in the winter you'll have to strip them.

Then in the spring it starts all over again. You'll have to plant the seeds in the seed bed, then transplant the plants into the field.

It's a lot of work for the farm family but a great cash crop.

edit: you also have to look for tobacco worms! They are big green catapillars. When you smash them they ooze green stuff.

 

Speaking of tobacco here is my 55 F350 parked in front of an old tobacco shed near me in North Central PA.. Notice the boards with hinges, The boards would be opoened to allow air into the shed to dry the leaves. No one around here grows tobacco anymore except the Amish.



And to get back to Vintage pics from long ago here are pics of my Grandpa's tobacco field:

one of my uncles spearing tobacco


Here is a spear that belonged to my Grandpa. It went on the end of the lath:



My mother, the tallest one with the bonnet, with her siblings in the tobacco field:


.

 

Stop it! You’re giving me flashbacks.

To me, housing was the worst. There was no “best” place to be, as each level was like a level of Daunte’s Purgatory.

The level you worked had less to do with age and experience and more to do with being tall enough to straddle the space between the rails.

Top tier: legs spread the span of the rails, right under the metal roof where it was always hotter than the surface of the sun, and there was little airflow. You were always bending down to grab a stick of tobacco from the guy under you. This is also where the wasp and hornet nests were. My great-uncle died as a teenager when a rail he was standing on snapped and he fell from the top of a 4-tier barn.

Middle tiers: also standing on rails, and always bending to grab a stick of tobacco from under you, then handing it to the guy above you. Here, you were rained on by dirt, tobacco bits, and worms. And sometimes the sweat of the guy above you.

Bottom tier: always unloading the wagon and stretching to hand it up to the guys above you. The rain of dirt, tobacco bits, and worms was almost constant. There was often a fog of dust coming from the ground. Looking back on it, I guess this was probably the best job. Or maybe just the safest. You were standing on the wagon, not rails. But I hated it as much as the other jobs because it is where I worked most of the time.

I hate to admit it, but even when I was 18-19 years old my mom pressured my dad and uncles to not let me work in the top. I acted embarrassed, and actually was, but was equally glad when her nagging kept me on the ground.

Ah, the good old days of family farming.

 

Ken, my Grandpa retired and sold his farm in1965, I think, so at my oldest I would have been 10, too young to work in the tobacco shed hanging tobacco. I was trusted enough to drive Grandpa's Ford truck (now my 54) in the field with my cousins dropping lath for the men spearing tobacco. And I drove the little John Deere A as men loaded the wagon and then drove it to the tobacco shed.

 

Did any of you catch the Jeopardy show last night? One of the questions was to identify an early TBird. One contestant guessed it was a Corvette (even tho the clue said it was a Ford), another guessed Bronco. Shaking my head....