It’s mid March and in an earlier time in Madison County, that meant local farmers would be sowing their tobacco beds in preparation for planting in mid May.
Since the passage of the Agricultural Adjustment Act in the early 1930s, tobacco had been the life blood of Madison County and the county was for decades the leading producer of burley tobacco in the State. The AAA was designed to keep farmers on their land and, in that, it was very effective. I have long been struck by the irony of how our country’s leading cause of preventable death provided life for small farmers like Doug Wallin.
Tobacco seed is miniscule and one small packet was enough to plant a 6’x50’ bed. To get an even sowing, farmers would mix the seed with a bucket of sifted wood ash and carefully spread it over the length of the bed. It was a meticulous job and people prided themselves on their ability to produce a bed bursting with plants, evenly spread out over the length and width of the entire bed. The plants would then be individually pulled and transplanted to the field, often by hand if the land was steep, but also with tractor and tobacco setter.
Tobacco was called the thirteen month crop and every step in the process was hard work. But people were proud to do the work because it provided a dependable source of cash where there had been none.
I had the opportunity to work a lot of tobacco when I first moved here and I must admit that I enjoyed it. It provided me access to the community and taught me valuable lessons about life in the mountains. But working with a group of neighbors toward a definable goal was also fun - the banter, the stories told, the laughter, the shared work. I do miss it and those times of community cohesion.