Redbow
Senior Member
We called it breaking corn and no it wasn't any fun..
Welcome Guest!
Topping And Suckering Tobacco
- Thread starter Redbow
- Start date
Redbow
Senior Member
I hated that as well but I will take picking cotton over the tobacco field any day.
Core Lokt
Senior Member
I think all high school aged boys need to do this today for the 4 years they are in HS. This younger generation would not be what it is today if so. Just my opinion....
Not me. Working flue cured tobacco wasn`t that bad to me. I fussed, but I did that for anything that wasn`t hunting and fishing..
Redbow
Senior Member
Anyone besides me ever went into the corn field and stripped off the fodder tying it into bundles for the mules to have during winter?
Redbow
Senior Member
I can say for sure that on the farm there was a whole lotta itching going on from many things...
WaltL1
Senior Member
Never had the pleasure and I'm glad. Doesnt look like it would be fun at all.
Yep.
Hillbilly stalker
Senior Member
Lord them corn worms used to eat me slam up. Paw Paw used to grow some tobacco down in the bottom land, he said it was a year round job. He used to make his own twist chewing tobacco....he called it "spit quick or die". I swiped a chew and swallered some juice ONE TIME. He sure named it right, he got a good laugh out of that, Maw maw flogged him pretty good over it tho. Old folks said that would knock the worms out of you too.
This one is older`n I am. Should probably be in an Old South museum.
Putting up hay was the farm job I hated the most. It was always hot as the gates of hades, and the cut ends of the grass in the bales would about eat the skin off the back of your forearms after you boosted bale after bale onto the truck or trailer.
Redbow
Senior Member
One thing I enjoyed on the farm was bailing hay I didn't mind that at all. A neighbor bought a hay bailer and bailed Grandpa's hay for him. I will take that over working in tobacco any day..
Hillbilly stalker
Senior Member
A hay truck is how most of us boys learned how to drive. They had blocks fastened to the pedals cause our legs were too short. We were too little to throw the hay up on the truck and too little to stack...so you drove. Put her in granny gear and let her idle. When I got big enough to throw hay, I thought I was a man then. One day I chunked a bail up there to my daddy and it had a snake coiled up on top, I was going so fast trying to keep up I didn't even notice it. He jumped off the truck and showed me I was still a boy.
He thought I done it for meanness.
He thought I done it for meanness.
I'm not talking about sitting on a tractor baling hay. I'm talking about walking through the field as fast as you can in 90 degree heat chunking 100-lb bales on the back of a truck one after another, then packing it into the oven-like barn, and winding up covered in hay stuck to your sweat down inside your clothes. Seemed like too, you were always putting it up while a big black cloud of a thunderstorm was brewing on the horizon, and they would be hollering at you the hurry! hurry!
Redbow
Senior Member
I know exactly what you mean, I never drove the tractor when hay bailing. Yeah it was hot throwing the hay bales into the wagon and then packing it into the old packhouse.. But bailing hay didn't last nearly as long as working in tobacco all summer and into the fall...
Hillbilly stalker
Senior Member
We cut, raked and bailed with a team of horses...Gee & Hawl all the way. We kept up and cut 5 fields...that was the only time you were allowed to drive a vehicle in the field, a hay truck. Hot itchy job for sure. I don't miss it none. Daddy still has the old mowing machine and rake.
Yep, first thing I drove was an old GMC ton truck with a cattle/hay bed, easing through the hay field.A hay truck is how most of us boys learned how to drive. They had blocks fastened to the pedals cause our legs were too short. We were too little to throw the hay up on the truck and too little to stack...so you drove. Put her in granny gear and let her idle. When I got big enough to throw hay, I thought I was a man then. One day I chunked a bail up there to my daddy and it had a snake coiled up on top, I was going so fast trying to keep up I didn't even notice it. He jumped off the truck and showed me I was still a boy.
Redbow
Senior Member
Its been many years since I have seen one of the old mowing machines used back in the day. As I watched those blades rotating back and forth I often thought to myself, I would hate to get caught in that thing..
I never saw this happen but I heard a few times as a boy when some farmer not too far away got thrown off his tractor and was run over by the disk harrow.. Oh man.
A friend of mine's Uncle was bush hogging around his farm pond when he got too close to the bank and the tractor turned over into the pond pinning him under the tractor and drowning the man..
I never saw this happen but I heard a few times as a boy when some farmer not too far away got thrown off his tractor and was run over by the disk harrow.. Oh man.
A friend of mine's Uncle was bush hogging around his farm pond when he got too close to the bank and the tractor turned over into the pond pinning him under the tractor and drowning the man..
