Tobacco baskets

QuietButDeadly

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
We never converted to oil or gas. Always wood. But when my brother took over the farm and started expanding the dairy herd, we started leasing out our allotment as we needed the fields for silage corn and pastures.

I did help my brother-in-law who had 4 curing barns and al of them were converted to oil. I do not think he ever converted to gas before he took the government buy out and got out of the tobacco growing business. Those old barns are still standing,
 

waymoe1

Ten Pointer
Question and it may be dumb, But why have carpenter bee's not destroyed some of these old barns? They attack my log home every year, but I've yet to see a old tobacco barn with a ton of carpenter holes.
 

Scrub

Twelve Pointer
Contributor
How many remember their parents or grandparents curing with wood? I was probably twelve or thirteen when my Dad converted to oil burners, then a few years later he went to the gas burners.

My dad cured with wood before I was born. I remember using oil pot burners then converted to propane. Three of the barns we used growing up still had the place you fed the wood in outside the barns. The mantle for my fireplace in the living room came from an old log tobacco barn on the farm that was built in 1927. It was an oak log I cut out of one of the woodfired barns that was deteriorating. I hewned it down with an axe then sanded it down and oil finished it. The wood brackets that hold the mantle my dad made me from thick oak boards that came out of my grandmas house that was built in 1909.
 

beard&bow

Twelve Pointer
Contributor
Question and it may be dumb, But why have carpenter bee's not destroyed some of these old barns? They attack my log home every year, but I've yet to see a old tobacco barn with a ton of carpenter holes.

Probably treated with some type of petroleum.
 

bigten

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
How many remember their parents or grandparents curing with wood? I was probably twelve or thirteen when my Dad converted to oil burners, then a few years later he went to the gas burners.

I do not remember wood fired as the ones I worked in were oil burners.
On a side note, I built my last gas cooker from a Kerosene barrel from a converted barn. The 150? Gallon (round) size instead of the 280. Smaller and works well for smaller groups.
 

Johnnie

Ten Pointer
My first “job” was picking up the leaves that fell from the racks as they were moved from trailer to barn. A much simpler time for me. 10 years old & all I cared about was being around the farm & what sodas my “uncle” the farm manager would have in the cooler at break time.
Yep, same. I was picking up loose leaves between the stringer and the barn door at age 4. Paid $2/day (usually 2 barns). Was pulling leaves at 9 or 10 until around 12-13. Could not believe the difference when I went back at 17 and this farmer had the bulk barns with the racks and smashing and puncturing the leaves. Older farmer would have had a heart attack seeing such sacrilege.

Johnnie
 

georgeeebuck

Ten Pointer
How many remember their parents or grandparents curing with wood? I was probably twelve or thirteen when my Dad converted to oil burners, then a few years later he went to the gas burners.
Me and my brothers would always spend the week before school started at my grandfathers. We would help with first primings and get to spend the nights at the barn watching the wood fire . Sleeping out under the stars or under the pack shed . We would roast corn ,apples and potatoes on top of the flue and tell stories . Those are some of my best memories of spending time with my grandpa .
 

specialk

Twelve Pointer
Yep, same. I was picking up loose leaves between the stringer and the barn door at age 4. Paid $2/day (usually 2 barns). Was pulling leaves at 9 or 10 until around 12-13. Could not believe the difference when I went back at 17 and this farmer had the bulk barns with the racks and smashing and puncturing the leaves. Older farmer would have had a heart attack seeing such sacrilege.

Johnnie

I laid sticks on the stringer
 

Zach's Grandpa

Old Mossy Horns
Cured tobacco is one of my favorite smells also. My grandaddy said he would cut wood all winter for his house, his daddy's house and next years tobacco curing. That was in the 30's and 40's
Yes Sir, cutting wood in the winter was priority back in that time. I remember when we heated with wood, cooked with wood, and cured tobacco with wood.

I remember "wood chopping's" [before chain saws] where neighbors gathered and helped each other, then about March they would have "wood sawing's" after it was hauled up to the house. After a "wood sawing" then there was splitting it in to smaller pieces for the cookstove, and the big ones had to be split for the fireplace. Stacking it in the woodshed was left to the kids for after school chores, kids like me.

My Grampa use to say that you could judge how good a manager a man was by whether or not he cut enough wood in Jan and Feb to last his family a year. I guess my Dad was a good manager because we never ran out of wood. The first ten years of my life I thought my name was "get in wood". LOL
 

Scrub

Twelve Pointer
Contributor
I always liked to help light the oil pot burners. To raise the heat in the barn just up the number of lit burners. Also loved riding with my dad to all the barns to check the temps in the barns before going to bed.
 

pattersonj11

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
View attachment 99859Our neighbors decided to bulldoze an old tobacco barn several years ago and gave me permission to take anything I wanted out of it.
I took eight of these old burners and my wife uses one on the porch to put plants on.

I think you just showed me a solution to a problem i have been having. I have some big cast iron pans that get really hot in the middle when on a burner. On here i have learned the common solution is to put a piece of plate steel between burner and pan to distribute the heat.

This looks like it would work.

Have to call Dad and tell him to get his thinking cap on. We have some of the old burners, but gonna have to find some complete rigs…..or fabricate.
 
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