Tobacco roads

Sunday morning, I drove in to Lancaster where he had stayed at his mom's for the night to take my son Gabe to breakfast for his 17th birthday. It was an early enough breakfast and the Neptune Diner up by the Amtrak station wasn't quite in full swing for a weekend morning yet, but by the time I got back home, the sun had shone long enough to make it more pleasant in an air conditioned house than in the humid outdoors. I'd lost the early morning window of comfortable riding temperature. Nonetheless, I shrugged myself into my padded bike shorts and jersey, lubricated the chain and pumped the tires on my Moser to 100 psi, and set off a little reluctantly for a midmorning ride on the farm country backroads. I had my small sketchbook and tin of colored pencils in the pockets of my jersey, intending ride out to where I'd found two big fields of tobacco near Mt Joy, to do a drawing of a tobacco plant.

Of course, by the time I'd pedalled up and down the rolling hills to get out there at what I felt was a respectable rate of speed for a guy riding an Italian road bike, I was drenched in sweat. It wasn't hot like it's been out in the western states, but it felt plenty hot and sticky to me, and I wasn't feeling thrilled about pulling out my sketchbook. But I pulled off Eby Chiques Road along the edge of a field of lush, maturing tobacco, laid my bike down, chose a spot to sit in the weeds, and got to it.

As I sat squinting through my sweaty eyeglasses there under the hot sun, still catching my breath as I began drawing, the beauty of the tobacco plant struck me as it always has, and I reflected on its history here. Lancaster county is one of the largest tobacco producing regions in the country, partly because the climate and soil are conducive to its cultivation, and partly because the mostly Amish and Mennonite farmers who grow it here are able to enlist their often large families into performing the backbreaking labor that it takes to produce a crop. I put up hay as a boy, before kicker balers were in wide use where I grew up, and I thought that was hard work, but the effort pales next to harvesting tobacco. I've never heard any one of my friends around here who harvested or stripped tobacco say that wish they could do it again. Thinking about that as my pencils melted onto the damp paper, I figured I had nothing to complain about.

tobacco, 8 x 5 1/4, Derwent Inktense colored pencils

view from the edge of a Lancaster county tobacco field (with my bicycle in the middle ground)

Comments

[Terry Carpenter]

We grow burley in this part of the country. Sadly, like most agricultural pursuits, there isn't as much grown now as when I was a child. I've slaved many hours in the tobacco fields for $0.50 or $1.00 an hour and been glad to get it. Although I enjoy my pipes and tobaccos, no amount of money could induce me to do that again. People who do undertake to grow tobacco have my undying gratitude.

[Scott A. Stultz]

Neill Roan was up here for a visit and we drove out to that same tobacco field last night at dusk. While Neill was taking some terrific photos in the rapidly fleeing twilight, I strolled through alfalfa stubble to introduce myself and talk with the Amish farmer and his family, who were heaving fresh baled hay from wagon to barn. The farmer told me that it was his brother in law's tobacco crop, and that it was indeed burley. When I asked him if anyone in Lancaster county grew Maryland variety tobacco any more, he said, "Oh, there's a few die hards who still do it, but I can't imagine why for all the trouble, what with it burning up (I assume he meant withering in the sun) so easily - it's more work than it's worth. You wouldn't catch me growing that stuff!"