Tobacco Farming

Word of the day:  chouse\CHOWSS ("OW" as in "cow")\ verb: cheat, trick.

"A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience."  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Physician and writer.

I recall from my childhood when I was growing up on the farm; how important a successful tobacco crop was.  If the crop wasn't a robust crop it reduced the amount of money we'd earn from the Thanksgiving-Christmas sale of the crop.  The last I recall, tobacco  would sell for about $2.50/lb.  We were poor and to us, that was a lot of money when we had an allottment of about 2,000+ lbs. 

I'm glad in a number of ways that the tobacco industry is on the decline and its lobby is somewhat waning.  I believe it to be very harmful . I've taken notice of how turned my impression is when I see a beautiful woman, "light-up".  Instantly, every iota of my beautiful woman perception is gone in a flash and replaced with every description of "ugly".

In the area of Southwest Virginia/Eastern Tennessee, people are beginning to rethink what growing a crop is and how to be economically self-sustaining without tobacco.  I believe this to be good all. 

Jim Cozart, owner of Cozart Tobacco Warehouses, in Abingdon, VA and other local towns, in the past few years has converted his warehouses where tobacco was auctioned and sold to storage warehouses for corporations.