Can Tobacco Growers sell as rope or twist?

[blufford]

Is there a market for twists, ropes or loose heirloom tobacco. I remember the oldtimers saying they would buy their twists right from the farmer.

[ace admirer]

TAF tobacco is the first one.

you can no more purchase untaxed tobacco than you can untaxed alke.

[Up North Louie]

---- shame, too.

[Oldcountryboy]

I wonder how they make twist and plug tobacco. I can remember when I was a kid we use to walk to the nearest grocery store and buy a plug of tobacco. We would bit off a peice and start chewing on it while walking back home. About half way back home that sun shine would be getting real hot and we would be about tuckered out and then we would start getting sick on that tobacco. Shore make for a long walk back. 5 mile round trip to the store and back.

I don't even see plugs and twist tobacco anymore in the stores nowdays. I see all kinds of snuff cans and can't believe the prices on them.

[Old John]

My DOUncle use to make his own twist.
He'd dip a handful of those Burley tobacco leave in a bucket of boiling water, to wash off the dirt & dead bugs. Then he'd shake it out and start twisting it. He'd make 8 or 10 twists, at a time. You can do that for your own use......
or at least get away with it, back then. That'd be about 50 years or so ago.

I could show you a couple old Country stores that still sell packege chewing tobacco, dipping snuff, twists and plugs. DSW HATES it when I chew.
So I don't........very often.

My extended Family use to grow several acres of good Burley tobacco, in SouthEastern Indiana, Franklin County. My Mom & Dad had about an acre and a half "tobacco base", they could put out & raise. Later that was reduced to an acre.
I learned to chew when I was about 12 or 14 yrs. old, working in that tobacco field, and in that old tobacco barn.I didn't smoke 'til about 16, though.
Lotta good Memories, growin' up. Not many bad ones.

[Terrabus]

I know little about growing tobacco but I seem to recall reading that you needed to hang it for up to 3 years. Somebody told me that it has thick leaves and takes a long time to dry. Does that sound right?

[Old John]

Originally Posted by Terrabus

I know little about growing tobacco but I seem to recall reading that you needed to hang it for up to 3 years. Somebody told me that it has thick leaves and takes a long time to dry. Does that sound right?

Actually, you cut it in the field, in late August, or in September. And yes you hang the stalks on sticks in a large, open barn. I never heard of Burley hanging 3 years.
It takes 60 to 90 days to dry enough to strip it(off the stalks), and grade it.
Back in the day, we use to make either 4 or 5 "grades", according to color and thickness of the leaf. I think my brother said they only make 3 "grades" now. If it's not dry enough when you strip it, it might mold. If it's too dry, it crumbles.

After it is thoroughly dry, it requires a rainy damp day, to come "into case",
so it doesn't crumble when you strip it.
My parents, and later my brothers always tried to get it all stripped and hauled to market, by the early or mid-December sale. that way there'd be money for Christmas. if they were late with the tobacco, in a bad year,
it would be a "lean Christmas".
There were rotating Tobacco Auctions at the various Tobacco Warehouses, complete with company buyers, Government graders and Excise men.

It has been 42 years since I left the Farm. And.......
Now they are paying farmers not to raise their tobacco, a one-time cash payment. In essence, buying out the farmers "Right" to grow it.
Times change. Tobacco is definitely Not PC.

[TexasArtist]

I've seena few tobacco twist at different pow wows I've gone to.