Tobacco

Tobacco will be curing in log barn at N.C. State Fair

CowBelle October 18 October 18

Tobacco is a large part of North Carolina’s history, weaving a strong thread through the economy. This golden crop is featured at the N.C. State Fair at the working tobacco barn in Heritage Circle. Visitors can see tobacco cured the old-fashioned way — in a flue-cured barn fired by wood. Today, most tobacco is cured in bulk barns, fueled by gas. Like many inventions or discoveries, the traditional process of curing came about by accident. A worker accidentally let the wood burning fire go out in a barn of tobacco and quickly restarted the fire with charcoal. The intense heat…

Chinese tobacco buyers get a taste of the State Fair

Flying Bob October 25 October 25

Asian visitors to the N.C. State Fair are becoming a tradition. Last year, Japan’s ambassador to the U.S. visited. Saturday, a group of 22 Chinese tobacco buyers toured the Fair. The group has been in North Carolina for almost a week, meeting with representatives of U.S. Tobacco Cooperative and others involved in exporting N.C. tobacco to China. Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler took a few members of the delegation for short rides on the Big Cart. Afterward, the group visited the Got to Be NC Agriculture exhibit, sampled homemade ice cream and strung tobacco in Heritage Circle, saw dairy cattle in…

Tobacco auction at the Expo

Bearded Lady October 24 October 23

Tobacco is a large part of the agricultural heritage of North Carolina and you can see it across the fairgrounds. Throughout the Fair, a dedicated staff stokes the fire at the Heritage Circle tobacco barn, and you may remember Merrie Go Round trying her hand at tobacco tying earlier this week. Yesterday, retired tobacco buyers, warehousemen and auctioneers re-enacted a live tobacco auction in the Expo Center. The event demonstrated how tobacco was traded for more than 150 years in North Carolina. During auction, tobacco is laid on the ground. As the group of buyers and warehousemen move down the line,…

Accepting the Press Office Challenge: Tobacco tying 101

Merrie Go Round October 18 October 18

OK, so I took Firecracker up on her challenge to do something at the Fair that I had never done. As we were talking through this idea, it came to our attention that there were plenty of things to choose from, which seemed crazy since this is the 14th year for both of us. So on Friday after the official tobacco-tying contest was finished, I decided on the spur of the moment to try my hand at stringing tobacco. And I knew exactly who I was going to get to teach me to string tobacco – Sandy Jones of Maple Hill,…

Sellin’ ‘backer’

Flying Bob October 25 May 8

Yesterday at the State Fair, there was a mock tobacco auction. Today, tobacco auctions are extinct, replaced by contracts with tobacco companies. But for more than 150 years, they were THE way N.C. farmers marketed their cured leaf. Retired auctioneers, buyers and warehousemen staged the mock auction in the Expo Center. Today’s fast-talking ad men, the guys who fly through the fine print at the end of those car ads on the radio, have nothing on these auctioneers. They are colorful, lyrical even, and, yes, fast. A crowd of about 50 people gathered to watch these old pros demonstrate how…

Loopin’ and stringin’

Flying Bob October 17 May 8

For the past three years, a new tradition has been taking root at the State Fair. It’s called Tobacco Heritage Day, and it’s on the first Friday of the Fair. On this day, the public is invited to help fill the old log barn in Heritage Circle with tobacco grown at the Oxford Tobacco Research Station. Tobacco is tied to tobacco sticks, then hung in the barn. Depending on where you’re from in North Carolina, the process of tying the tobacco is called looping or stringing. Once the barn is loaded, a wood fire cures it for about a week….

Tag: Tobacco