Connecticut Valley Tobacco Barns October

Tobacco farming in the Connecticut Valley has a long history. When the first settlers came to the valley in the 1630s, tobacco was already being... more

by Marcel J Goetz Sr

Title

Connecticut Valley Tobacco Barns October

Artist

Marcel J Goetz Sr

Medium

Photograph

Description

Tobacco farming in the Connecticut Valley has a long history. When the first settlers came to the valley in the 1630s, tobacco was already being grown by the native population. By 1700, tobacco was being exported via the Connecticut River to European ports. The use of Connecticut Valley tobacco as a cigar wrapper leaf began in the 1820s. By the 1830s, tobacco farmers were experimenting with different seeds and processing techniques.
The technique of growing shade tobacco has changed little in the past hundred years. To form the shade tents, a tobacco field is set with posts in a grid layout. Wires are stretched from post to post, and a light, durable fabric (once cotton but now a synthetic fiber) is tied across them and draped along the sides. For example, twenty posts in four rows of five will create twelve square cells in three rows of four. Under the tents the sunlight is soft and diffused the air is humid and the ambient temperature is slightly warmer than outside. Filtering the sun produces a thinner and more elastic tobacco leaf that cures to a lighter, even color often desired by the Cuban and Dominican cigar producers. Area farmers grew tobacco for the two outside layers of cigars, the binder and the wrapper. A tobacco leaf type named Shoestring, then Broadleaf and Havana Seed were used. In the late 19th century a fine grained leaf type imported from Sumatra began to replace the wrapper from the Connecticut River valley. The tobacco farmers matched the Sumatran leaf by making shade tents of cloth to cut sunlight and raise humidity.
At its height, there was greater than 15,000 acres (61 km2) of tobacco being cultivated under shade in the Connecticut River valley. Currently, the amount of tobacco being grown in the valley is just over a steady 2,000 acres (8.1 km2).[2] Approximately 34,000 acres (140 km2) of land in Connecticut is covered by Windsor Soil, named after the town of Windsor, Connecticut, famous for its shade grown tobacco. (From Wikipedia)

Uploaded

October 4th, 2014