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In 1804 our 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 raw
leaf tobacco grown
by us.
We have added 37
new varieties
for 2007 making a total of 51 varieties that we now offer, the
largest selection of rare, heirloom tobacco varieties on the
Internet.
Click
here for the tobacco varieties we carry and other tobacco related
items.
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