Text 12448, 41 rader
Skriven 2008-08-21 14:07:16 av DAVE SACERDOTE (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av DALE SHIPP
Ärende: Re: Tobacco in CT
=========================
DSh> She would have worked there in the early 50's.  What happens now?  
DSh> Does CT not grow as much tobacco?  Or found other ways to process it?

Like many other areas of New England, Connecticut has lost a lot of
farmland.  But despite what Ruth implied in an earlier message, there
is still plenty of tobacco grown here, mostly by small farmers on 
smaller tracts, many of which are out of the public eye (on backroad
fields, for example, instead of along major state roads.)

There are still a few family farms that grow tobacco and which hire
teenagers to work the fields and the sheds, but by and large kids now
don't want to work such hot, dirty, exhausting, and physical jobs and
the work goes more and more to migrant workers (many of whom are from
Jamaica now rather than Puerto Rico.)  The work is still done primarily
by hand exactly the way your sister would have done it in the 1950's.
In fact, since many New England farms are still using tractors that
were new in the 1940's and 50's, if she went to a tobacco farm now she
would probably feel that she stepped through a time warp to her teens.
Go to the link that I gave Burt in my earlier message - the photos
there were taken over a period of fifty years, but they could have all
been taken this summer for the amount of change that has taken place.

Broadleaf and shade tobacco grow quickly, and even up here we can get
two crops in during a good season.  So it's a fast cash crop.

I predict that there will be tobacco grown in the Connecticut Valley
for many years to come - as long as there are people who appreciate
very high quality cigars.  Before the Revolucion, the best Cuban 
cigars were rolled in Connecticut Valley wrappers, and even today
the best cigars not made in Cuba use wrappers grown here.  Cigar 
wrappers grown from Windsor CT to South Hadley MA are renowned 
throughout the world.

---
http://davescupboard.blogspot.com/ - Dave's Cupboard - Food and 
Restaurant Reviews; If I post it here in NCE, you'll find it 
blogged with photos at Dave's Cupboard.

http://bacon-labels.blogspot.com/ - A gallery of bacon package labels.
(The extra shelf in Dave's Cupboard.
 * Origin: Doc's Place BBS Fido Since 1991 docsplace.tzo.com (1:123/140)