Farming in the Old South

Posted by Ron M on June 13, 2007 at 22:48:45 from (70.41.247.71):

A friend on the ATIS list gave me permission to put this story on the forum about him when he young and living in the south on Tobacco farm.
Ron
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When I was a boy it took 2 or 3 days per week to harvest our tobacco crop.
So we traded labor with other small farmers. We'd help them and they'd help
us. One farmer we worked with was a share cropper. He tended about 6 acres
of tobacco and roughly 100 acres total with a worn out Farmall Super A and a
completely worn out Farmall A. The motor was so bad in the A that we had to
take turns turning the crank to start it. A man or a strong boy could spin
the crank round and round like cranking a corn sheller. It would take long
enough to get heat in the motor that it would wear the first guy out, then
the second and sometimes the third.

Sometimes it wouldn't crank start at all and we had to hook the Super A to
it and pull it round and round the tobacco barns with the Super A in high
gear. Sooner or later it would crank. Then we let it run all day. It
would sit and run idle and blow a continuous stream of white smoke rings out
the straight exhaust pipe. Each ring would pass through the previous one if
the wind wasn't blowing. Sometimes you could see as many as 4 or 5 rings at
once.

The farmer that owned it told us not to check the oil in it. He said, "if
it stops smokin pour one quart of oil in it". Ah. The good ole days.

Charlie

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