New Hope Heirloom
Tobacco Seeds
Welcome to our Tobacco Seed section. As you can see our
preservation work goes beyond the normal
open-pollinated and heirloom vegetable seed varieties and
encompasses field crops like tobacco
as well. Tobacco farming is deeply rooted in our family’s history
and has supported us for many
generations until only recently. Our earliest ancestors who
settled in Virginia about 1630 and
later moved to North Carolina in the early 1700’s were believed
to have grown tobacco. In 1804
my ancestors moved to Tennessee and settled a few miles from
our present day farm location and
purchased many acres of land and so began our family’s history
of tobacco growing in Tennessee.
Our family’s heritage of growing tobacco as a cash crop
continued until 2002 when after 150+ years
and many, many generations of tobacco farmers it all came to
an end. After raising tobacco for over
35 years myself, I was the last one in the family to grow
tobacco for farm income. It was a heart
wrenching decision to make but with the politics and the never
ending obstacles in producing a
tobacco crop in the 21st century I felt it was the only practical
option. I still grow a little
for the pure enjoyment of 'working' the crop. It is in my blood
and my earliest memories are of
being in the “tobacco patch”.
With the loss of tobacco as a cash crop for farm income and
with my years of working at preserving
heirloom and old open-pollinated varieties my interests naturally
lead me towards preserving the
rare tobacco seed varieties of long ago. I can remember my
grandfather talking of some of these
old varieties. So I began to search out and hopefully locate
some of the old varieties and grow
out to see if they matched the original historical documentation
and if so, place them back into
growers hands to insure their continued preservation.
As time allows, it is our hope and desire to add information on
growing, harvesting, curing etc.
as well as other tobacco related items such as line of pipes,
cigar accessories and leaf tobacco
grown by us.
Our selection is limited this year but efforts are under way to
add several more old varieties for
next season.
New Hope Seed Company - Rare, Open-Pollinated, Heirloom Vegetable and Tobacco Seeds and Plants
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New Hope
Seed Company
™
Open-Pollinated & Heirloom Seed
"Bringing New Hope For The Preservation
Of Heirloom & Open-Pollinated Varieties" ™ |
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