I grew up in tobacco country - lived it, breathed it. They said back then raising a tobacco crop took 13 months out of the year. My father believed every word of it. If he wasn’t growing tobacco he was thinking about it. It never consumed him, but he was a master of his craft.
With the coming of March, he would have already swung into action. February 24 was his target date. I like to think he chose that date because it marked the birth of his first-born son, but it was just a good excuse to get an early start. March frosts were his enemy, but he was willing to take the risk. He hovered over his plant beds like a mother hen. If a late freeze was in the weather forecast, he would double or triple the plant bed canvas to protect emerging plants. I remember the time he built fires all around the plant beds that burned all night to stave off the frost. In all the years I knew him, he never lost a plant bed to the cold. He would wait with childlike wonder to see those tiny green dots appear (thousands of them) against the backdrop of dark earth.
Weeks before the tobacco beds were prepared, he had already removed the canvases from the tier poles in the tobacco barn. They had been woven like the braids in Samson’s beard and hung there to keep them clean and out of reach of mice and rats. Each canvas had been inspected and evaluated as to its usefulness. He knew how to make a canvas last.
Next, he would bring the New Idea tobacco setter out of the shed and inspect it from stem to stern. It was of the “drag setter” variety. (More on that later.) It received a good dose of grease. Hoses and couplings were inspected. He left nothing to chance. In all the years I worked with him as part of the tobacco setting crew, we never experienced a mechanical breakdown.
The water pump driven by a 2 H.P. Briggs and Stratton engine was also given a good going over. He fine turned it, so on tobacco setting day, it fired with the first pull of the rope. There were no delays when it was time to refill the water tank on the setter.
Long before the tobacco plants were young and growing, he had cleaned the cow manure out of the feed barn and delivered it to the tobacco patches. He did so one-manure-fork-load-at-a-time. It was back-breaking work. He pitched the manure onto a flatbed wagon and scattered it on the tobacco patches one-manure-fork-load-at-a-time. He never complained. When he turned the manure and the cover crop under, the stage was set. Hungry plants would grow dark and green.
My mother only helped with his tobacco crops on two occasions. On the mornings we pulled plants (Some called it drawing slips.) she helped until around 10:00 and then went to the house to cook dinner for the “hands” (as in hired hands), but it was mostly us. Then, when we started setting, she would follow the setter for about two rounds to make sure my brother, Tom, and I had our timing down. If you ever set tobacco on a drag setter, you would understand. Sometimes she would call out, “Boys, you’re setting ‘em two by two! Get your timing right!” That meant one of us was missing the water. We straightened that out in a hurry.
Ahh, to get your hands in the dirt again! And witness the miracle of the seed, and the soil, and the sun. It makes me want to take off my shoes and walk in earth made soft and smooth and ready for setting tobacco.
Copyright 2026 by Jack McCall
