Mini-Document Essay

Students enrolled in English 1102 classes taught by VSU Instructor Diane W. Howard during spring 2004 semester, read “Going Through the Change,” Janice Daugharty’s first collection of short stories. After reading the collection, the students explored topics in the stories, relating them to their hometowns or communities. Simply put, the students related the ideas in a literary piece to their own lives, finding points or areas of similarity as well as areas of disagreement. Once they identified points—in agreement or in contrast—the students researched and wrote a mini-documented essay on the subject “Regional Identity.”

Growing Tobacco—South Georgia Style

by Kathy Berger

For the past twenty to thirty years, tobacco farming has been one of the leading agricultural crops in our region of Deep South Georgia. Throughout the years, the means of harvesting tobacco has tremendously changed because of the new equipment invented to harvest the tobacco crop more efficiently. Tobacco has always been the most well-known and family-owned farming business in South Georgia.

Janice Daugharty’s article, “Write Where You Know” states, “Of course, most writers are wise to the rule of writing about what you know. But where you know, a specific place, is equally important” (“Write” 32). I can relate to many of Daugharty’s characters and stories since I am from South Georgia. Specifically, my experience of harvesting tobacco reminds me of a few of Janice Daugharty’s characters from her book, Going Through the Change, a collection of short stories. Daugharty’s book took me back in time to the region where I was born and raised. There are many steps in the process of growing tobacco, which are portrayed throughout the short stories in Daugharty’s book. Daugharty’s short stories have directed my mind to recall the memories of my family growing tobacco in Deep South Georgia.

I was born and raised on a farm in Lanier County which is a region located which many people call Deep South Georgia. My family’s main source of income was based on growing and harvesting flue-cured tobacco. In Georgia Agricultural Resources it states, “Georgia is known for its superior flue-cured tobacco, the primary ingredient in blended cigarettes” (“Tobacco”). Also, we grew other crops, such as corn, cotton, and soybean. We grew vegetables for our own food, to fill our freezer and half of the families in Lanier County. We raised hogs, cows, and chickens. We had approximately 120 acres of tobacco fields in the area located in Lanier, Lowndes, and Clinch counties. My Moma would get up at 3:00 a.m. to cook dinner for all of the tobacco hands. She would work in the tobacco fields until 11:30 a.m. and then serve dinner to everyone. After, she would go back to the field and work until late in the evening; then, she would go to pick vegetables. Moma would come home, prepare the vegetables and cook them for supper. She would sleep for a couple of hours and get up at 3:00 a.m. and go again with the same routine. There weren’t too many families in Lanier County who would cook for their tobacco hands.

The Junior Suggs family (my family) was the #1 leading tobacco farmer, with Virgil Moore being the 2^nd, and Ben Strickland rated the 3^rd. All families are from Lakeland, Georgia. Junior Suggs, my Daddy recalls, “From the year of 1972 to 1975, we grew “Experimental Tobacco.” We grew five different types of this new tobacco. We planted 3,300 plants of each type of experimental tobacco to one-half acre of land. This tobacco was planted in a field beside our house because we could keep a close eye on the growth of the tobacco” (Suggs, J.). Bryan Suggs, my brother says, “We had five different types: #2326, #79, #G28, #376, and the last one I can’t remember. We sold an average of 3,000 lbs. per half acre of Type #2326. The sand lugs (leaves at the bottom part of the stalk) sold for $.85/lb., the middle leaves of the stalk sold for $1.15/lb., and the top leaves went for $1.45-$1.65/lb. We used white color twine striped with red, yellow, blue, green, and orange. After the tobacco was cured in the barn, the twine would not discolor. Therefore, it was easily identified” (Suggs, B.). At this time I never really understood the main reason for growing this crop of tobacco. But, we made sure that we kept these five different types of tobacco separated. If we didn’t, we were in trouble! Lola Suggs, my Moma said, “Yes, we would use different colors of tobacco string or twine to identify the types of the tobacco. Also, different types of chemicals or pesticides and fertilizer were used for this experimental tobacco” (Suggs, L.). “The government official Bobby Miles from the Tobacco Experimental Station in Tifton, Georgia, came to take pictures of us harvesting our crop” said Daddy. Moma stated, “The pictures were placed on front page in all local newspapers. Also, the experimental tobacco crop was carefully watched by John Strickland, the Lanier County Agent” (Suggs, L.). All of these officials carefully watch the whole process of growing the experimental tobacco which are planting, all stages of growth, harvesting, flue-curing, and selling the tobacco to the highest bidder at Roy Pearce’s Tobacco Warehouse in Valdosta, Georgia. The buyers of this tobacco were from North Carolina. In 1976, the #1 type of Experiment Tobacco was chosen which was called tobacco type #2326. This tobacco is currently grown here in the South Georgia area and is the #1 tobacco grown in North Carolina (Suggs, J.).

This one particular story written by Daugharty, “Dogs in a Pack” reminds me of when I use to go to the tobacco warehouse auctions, she wrote, “Set top of many asheet of tobaccer for their daddy, to get the buyers out of Carolina to hike up the price at the warehouse” (7). On an internet site listed by the ERS/USDA Briefing Room, an article called “Tobacco: Background” states, “In 1997, flue-cured tobacco was grown on about 16,000 farms in North Carolina, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Alabama. Farmers in these States grew an average of 30.0 acres of tobacco, up from 9.5 acres in 1972. Farm sizes have expanded as harvest has become more mechanized” (“Tobacco: Background”). Tobacco is still a well-known crop for many farmers in South Georgia.

After reading many stories in Janice Daugharty’s book, Going Through the Change, my mind started wandering back in time. This book helped me to remember so many details of how my family grew tobacco. At age 5 in the year of 1967, I was too little to crop or string tobacco on the harvester and not quite strong enough to drive the tractor pulling the harvester. So, I would sleep on a metal piece which covered the wheels on the harvester while my Moma and others worked in the early morning hours. This harvester needed nine people to operate it. We had someone driving the tractor pulling the harvester down the tobacco rows. Usually, it was my brother, Bryan (age 7) who drove the tractor. He had to stand on the brake pedal with both feet and all of his weight to stop the tractor. On some of our farms we could only fit a small tractor in between to tobacco rows. Therefore, we had to pull a small sled behind the tractor. My Moma, my brothers and sister, and I would walk down the rows and crop the tobacco; then place it on the sled. When the sled was full, the tractor driver would take the (regular) tobacco to the barn to be strung with white twine on a stick. This barn is where I first learned to string tobacco on a stick. I had to stand on a 5-gallon bucket in order to reach the stick. In “Dogs in a Pack” Daugharty states, “How she handed tobacco leaves, two to a hand, for Kiki to string on sticks at the barn” (3). Also, in another story written by Daugharty, “Nightshade” she writes, “Ahead, he could see the thick man-like woman he raised from a baby [...] the little girl he’d taken fishing, the one who could bait a hook and take off a fish, or string tobacco with the farmhands” (96). Even though I don’t live in Lanier County anymore, this region and the memories of growing tobacco will always be in my heart.

My mind keeps drifting back remembering shortly after learning to string tobacco at the barn, I began stringing tobacco on the harvester. The older I became, the more I worked with each level of the process of growing tobacco. I had planted tobacco, re-transplanted, hoed the weeds, topped and suckered, walked behind the harvester picking up the ripened leaves left by the croppers. A handbook located on a website called “Topping and Chemical Sucker Control Programs for Georgia” written by Michael Moore from the University of Georgia College of Agricultural & Environmental Sciences states, “Benefits of topping and sucker control include; increased root growth, reduced weight in the top of the plant, a reduction of the translocation of nutrients and moisture from lower leaves to support the growth and development of upper leaves” (Moore). Topping and suckering tobacco was not a fun job; but, it had to be done. After I had finished with topping and suckering the tobacco, my hands, hair, arms, or whatever I had touched the tobacco were caked with tar. Also, to add to my accomplishments of tobacco farming, I cropped, strung, laid sticks on the trailer, drove the tractor, and hung tobacco on the tiers in the barn. When the tobacco was cured, I helped unstring, packed the tobacco in sheets and stacked it in our pack-house, and helped load the sheets which weighed about 250 lbs. each onto the 2-ton truck with tall side-bodies. Then, the tobacco was taken to the tobacco warehouse to sell. I reminisce when reading Daugharty’s “Dogs in a Pack”:

But neither is soft—they’ve helped their mama keep the farm going for the past five years and can lift sheets of tobacco that would make grown men stagger. [...] In the next room, against wainscoted walls, mounds of sheeted tobacco are stacked high, and golden dried leaves poke through the riven croker sheets, knotted on top. A snuffy smell seems to dim the overhead light showering yellow on bundles of thin tobacco sticks and the dirt nap of the floor tatted with tobacco leaves and rosettes of white twine. (6-7)

What memories! If I were lucky enough, Daddy would let me pick up the hands (workers) in the morning; then, take them home in the late evening. On Saturday evening, I would ride along with one of my brothers to help pay the hands for that week’s work. That’s the way it was done in our “neck of the woods.” If I were not working in the fields, sometimes I could go to Roy Pearce’s Tobacco Warehouse in Valdosta to watch the selling of our tobacco. Bryan and I would sit on top of our tobacco sheets waiting for the auctioneers to come around to our tobacco. It was always fun listening to the auctioneers blabber off numbers as they went to each sheet of tobacco.

My mind meanders back to the summer of 1976 and the way the Suggs family harvested tobacco had changed. We were one of the first farmers in the Lanier County who used a Bulk Harvester. We thought we were “moving up” in the world, especially being from a small town like Lakeland, Georgia, which didn’t even register on the Georgia State map! This type of harvester took only six people to operate it—no stringers! Now, my job was to manage this part of the harvesting process, of course, my brothers helped too. I would place the tobacco in a rack holder, then I took a rack which had 18-24 inches of metal spikes and pushed it through the tobacco leaves until it clamped to a long piece of metal which held the tobacco in the rack. This rack of tobacco weighed at least 200-250 lbs. each. I would man-handle these racks of tobacco and place them on the trailer connected to the bulk harvester. The harvester had a wench to lift these heavy racks of tobacco; which broke down often and was never fixed. The process of growing tobacco has changed in the way Daugharty’s characters were portrayed of how farming was then and from the way I remember farming tobacco throughout all of my years of experience. However, at the end of the process, the farmers still get the same results—cured tobacco.

After more than 30 years, in 1979 we stopped farming tobacco because Daddy no longer had his eight children to help him grow tobacco. All of my brothers and my older sister were married and had started their own families. My sister move away from this area. My brothers started their own tobacco crop or did construction work, in which all of them owns a construction business to this day. I have not stepped foot in a tobacco field since! Although, it was really nice to reminisce of how tobacco farming was done “back in those days.”

My knowledge of tobacco farming compared to the characters from Janice Daugharty’s book, “Going Through the Change” are very much the same. However, I do wish that Mrs. Daugharty had put more emphasis on the tobacco farming in her stories. Absolutely, I can relate to the characters Daugharty used in her stories because I was born and raised on a farm also. The smell of the flue-cured tobacco—it is a smell I will never forget. Actually, I did like the smell of cured tobacco. Janice Daugharty wrote about the sheets of tobacco stacked in a pack-house, the smell of curing tobacco in barns, taking the tobacco to the market to be sold and the families physically helped with all of the process. In the story “Dogs in a Pack” Daugharty writes, “The smell of dry tobacco, cooking in the barn beyond the oak, scuds high in the star-spun sky” (11). Most definitely, I have experienced all of this. Daugharty even writes about the smoking or chewing of tobacco in her stories. In the her story “Living Lessons” she writes, “He takes out the tobaccer can from his shirt pocket and shakes a dab in a cuffed paper, spits, licks and rolls it. He strikes a match [...] He sucks in and rears back, shaking out the fire” (198). However, before tobacco is available for smoking or dipping, it has to be first grown in the field like the Suggs family’s crop in Lanier, Lowndes, and Clinch counties that are located in the heart of Deep South Georgia.

Harvesting tobacco has changed enormously from 20-30 years ago. Currently, there is a harvester that requires only one person to operate it. It does all of the work for the farmer. The old fashion way of harvesting tobacco was very hard work. Some people may not agree with me when I say, that this new type of harvester seems to take the original identity out of farming tobacco.

Janice Daugharty’s book, Going Through the Change has taken my thoughts, mind, and heart back to a time of my own regional identity. These past memories of being raised on a farm and growing tobacco, I haven’t thought about in many years. My past experiences of tobacco compared to some of the characters portrayed in Daugharty’s book are very much the one and the same. Absolutely, I can relate to Growing Tobacco—South Georgia Style.

Works Cited

Daugharty, Janice. “Dogs in a Pack.” Going Through the Change. Princeton, New Jersey: Ontario Review Press, 1994, 1-14.

Daugharty, Janice. “Living Lessons.” Going Through the Change. Princeton, New Jersey: Ontario Review Press, 1994, 185-200.

Daugharty, Janice. “Nightshade.” Going Through the Change. Princeton, New Jersey: Ontario Review Press, 1994, 83-99.

Daugharty, Janice. “Write Where You Know.” Writer’s Digest. May 1997. 32.

Moore, Michael J. Topping and Chemical Sucker Control Programs for Georgia. U of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Cooperative Extension Service. 26 Mar 2004. <http://www.griffin.peachnet.edu/caes/tobacco/handbook/sucker-prgs.html>.

Suggs, Bryan. Personal interview. 10 Apr. 2004.

Suggs, Junior. Personal interview. 28 Mar. 2004.

Suggs, Lola. Personal interview. 27 Mar. 2004.

“Tobacco.” Georgia Agricultural Resources. 2002. U of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. 26 Mar 2004. <http://resources.caes.uga.edu/media/GAR/tobacco.htm>.

“Tobacco: Background.” ERS/USDA Briefing Room. 25 Mar 2004. <http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/tobacco/background.htm>.

Illustrations

Figure #1. Suggs Family. 25 Dec 1963.

Figure #2. Suggs’ Tobacco Farm. Lanier County. Summer 1975.

Figure #3. Suggs, Lola. Home Place. 1961.

Figure #4. Suggs, Junior. Experimental Tobacco #2326. Lanier County. Summer 1975.

Figure #5. Suggs’ Experimental Tobacco #2326. Summer 1974.

Figure #6. Suggs’ Tobacco Farm. Clinch County. Summer 1975.

Figure #7. Suggs, Mike. Tractor. Summer 1976.

Figure #8. Suggs’ Tobacco Farm. Lowndes County. Summer 1976.

Figure #9. Suggs’ Tobacco Farm. Lanier County. Summer 1977.