THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 6, 1996 TAG: 9610040202
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: FACES AND PLACES
SOURCE: Linda McNatt
LENGTH: 85 lines
If trees grow in Brooklyn and collards grow in Chuckatuck, does tobacco grow in Suffolk?
Yes, indeed.
It was news to me. I'm used to seeing the fields of peanuts, soybeans, corn and wheat all over this large, agricultural city.
I find real beauty in the fields. Especially this time of year, I love to ride the back roads to watch the tractors and combines at harvest.
If you haven't tried it, I think you'd be surprised at what a stress reliever the activity really is.
But tobacco in Suffolk? For some reason, I just didn't think this peanut neighborhood was tobacco country.
I found out when somebody mentioned to me recently that they had seen fields of tobacco growing in the Holland area. Two fields, I discovered, straddle the Suffolk/North Carolina line.
Unfortunately, most of the tobacco crop already has been harvested, so I didn't get to see it growing. But, after a couple of telephone calls, I did get to meet one of three local farmers growing tobacco, and I got an education.
Tobacco, Mallory Buck of Gates, N.C., told me, is a labor-intensive crop, but it's still one of the best moneymakers around, despite the daily bad publicity that smoking gets.
Buck, who lives on a road named for him in the town of Gates, couldn't have been nicer about teaching a Virginia peanut-country person about tobacco. He gave me a tour of his farm and took me out to the collection of barns where he dries his crop.
He had 108 acres of his 1,800-acre farm planted this year in tobacco. But this wasn't his best year for the crop. Normally, he said, he counts on one drying barn per acre. This year, he had 71 barns filled. That's an example of what this summer's rain did to the tobacco crop across Virginia.
Then, there was Hurricane Fran. When it blew through, the winds and rain destroyed much of the state's tobacco crop. Buck's problems resulted more from the rain.
Tobacco, he explained, falls somewhere between corn and peanuts in terms of moisture requirements, needing a little less than corn, a little more than peanuts. And this area of Hampton Roads is normally a perfect climate for the crop.
So why don't more farmers grow it?
Because it is so labor-intensive.
``I've been growing tobacco all my life,'' Buck said. ``It's in my blood. But it's too much work for some farmers.''
First, you must start the seeds in beds, then transplant the plants into the fields. At least three times a year, Buck brings migrant workers into his fields to help with what machinery can't do.
The migrants plant the tobacco seedlings. Then, they come in to pull the blooms from the tobacco plants after they have matured. They were back again a couple of weeks ago to get the plants ready for harvest. From the tobacco fields, Buck, 58, told me, the migrants move on to work at local cotton gins as that crop is harvested.
By the time I got to Buck's fields in Somerton, near Holland, he had already moved the leaves into the drying barns.
The rich, fragrant smell coming from the barns was incredible.
``I had a fellow here the other day who said he'd never smoked a cigarette in his life,'' Buck said, chuckling. ``But he said he believed he could smoke a cigar a foot long after smelling these barns.''
During the nine-day curing process, temperatures inside the barns are taken up to 165 degrees. The farmer must watch the barns like a mother watching a newborn baby.
``The last thing I do before I go to bed at night is check these barns around midnight,'' he said.
If the furnaces fail or the temperatures for some reason fall below or above the recommended level, Buck could lose his crop.
Buck's tobacco this year will still make money. That's because, Buck said, tobacco is bringing the highest price that he can ever recall.
``The price of tobacco on the warehouse floor is $1.92 a pound,'' he said. ``I don't care what quality is on the floor - if it's tobacco, and it's not rotten, it'll bring $1.92.''
Thanks, Mr. Buck, for the tour and the education. Now we know tobacco grows in Suffolk. MEMO: Linda McNatt writes columns about people and places of local
interest for The Sun. If you have ideas, fax them to her at 934-7515, or
call her at 934-7561. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by LINDA McNATT
Mallory Buck dries his tobacco harvest. by CNB