I read the whole thing and was fascinated. My early years involved time on my Uncle Lew's dairy farm. While the tasks were different the principles taught were the same.
As a toddler I was tasked with bring in the cows, twice a day, every day, to be milked. A farm dog named Shep "helped" me. The pasture gates had counter loaded latches a toddler could handle. Of course, the cows udders were full and they wanted to come in. Consider -- This job got an annoying kid out from under foot during preparation of breakfast and supper and gave the adults an, all too short, break. My uncle was a smart guy. Unbeknownst to me when I was not there Shep did the job by himself. The counter weighted latches worked for him too.
I distinctly remember the ice house. Special meals were frequently finished with home made iced cream and fruit pie. For anyone who thinks the women didn't work try producing three meals a day for 12 to 14 hardworking people using a wood fired kitchen stove. It was an 8 holer with a big oven , a warming oven and two kerosene burners for coffee and such. This included growing almost all the greens, vegetables and potatoes eaten on the farm. My Uncle plowed and harrowed the two acre garden but all the planting and harvesting was done by the women. We kids, my cousins and I, were allowed to pick and eat all the tomatoes, onions, carrots and string beans we could eat as long as we didn't trample the rows.
My dad grew up on a farm just like this in Kingstree SC. in the 40's although the terms are different the meaning is the same. I'm growing and curing the same way as in the link, my dad says in 1949 my great grand pa got $1.04 per lb. because he nurtured his dabacca , all dad can say is "sold american".
Thats a great article workhorse_01, I didn't realize it would take more'n an hour to read though when I started. Once I started it was to well written to stop. My dinner got cold. It realy makes you realize how much work goes into farming tobacco for a living, especialy all the work and hazards of flue curing a large barns worth, several times a season.
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