Across the Fence #548
“Summertime and the livin’ is easy.” Those words from an old song certainly didn’t apply to life on the farm. There was always work to do, especially if you had dairy cows and raised tobacco!
Recently at the Senior Meal site in Westby, we got talking about tobacco planting, and the subject of Ellis tobacco planters came up. Every farm that raised tobacco had one.
When we lived in Madison, our neighbor across the street was Homer Ellis. One day I told him about an Ellis tobacco planter we had used. He informed me that HIS company in Verona manufactured those planters we had spent so many, long hours on! Orville Clark, who mentioned the Ellis planters during our meal, also knew Homer, because he used to drive to the Ellis plant in Verona to pick up planters and bring them back to the Westby area.
Our discussion about Ellis tobacco planters got me to thinking about the process of raising tobacco and how what was once such a common practice, will soon be only a memory. There’s little or no tobacco raised around here now, but for many years tobacco was the major cash crop on many farms in Vernon County. It paid the taxes and many other bills, but was a very labor-intensive crop. It started in the spring when the tobacco beds were steamed and seeded and didn’t end until the tobacco had been stripped and sold, which usually occurred in January.
Before tobacco seeds were sown in plant beds, the soil was sterilized by steaming. This helped control diseases, weeds and insects.
I remember the excitement as I watched Bernard Ostrem’s big steam engine lumbering slowly down our road with billows of black smoke belching from the smoke stack. The driver stood in back on a platform between two large, steel wheels. When he pulled on a cord, the whistle would erupt with a loud, piercing sound that could be heard throughout the countryside.
One year when I was very young, the steamer blew up. My cousin, Sandy, and I were so frightened by the explosion, we didn’t venture outside the house for days. This was just after the end of World War II and Sandy thought the Germans were coming and had bombed our farm!
To steam the soil, a rectangular pan on wheels, around 4’x16’, was dropped down where the tobacco beds would be located. A hose running from the steamer to the pan provided the steam. After about 30 minutes the pan was moved and the process repeated.
After the soil had been steamed, the tobacco seeds were sown in wood-framed beds and covered with a muslin-type cover for protection. The beds were watered every day and the plants soon filled the beds. When they were 6”-8” tall they were ready to be picked and transplanted in the field.
Even before we were old enough to plant, we helped water the beds and picked plants, placing them carefully in boxes and bushel baskets.
When I was nine years old, I learned to “drop” tobacco. I was left handed, so my mother didn’t have to change sides and continued to drop right-handed. My father drove the John Deere B tractor that pulled the planter.
The Ellis tobacco planter consisted of a large barrel filled with water, mounted on two large iron wheels. The two “droppers” sat on low iron seats just inches off the ground behind the barrel with their feet stretched out in front of them and resting on foot pegs under the barrel. It was not very comfortable. A board rested on our laps and the tobacco plants were piled on the boards. As the planter went slowly across the field, the shovel or “shoe,” as it was called, located between the two droppers, made a small furrow in the soil. With each click, water filled the hole, and the dropper inserted a plant. The furrow then closed around the plant and the process was repeated for the other dropper. If you inserted the plant too deep, the stem would break, if planted too shallow, it would also die. There was an “art” to dropping tobacco! The droppers would get into the rhythm of the clicks, with never a moment to even scratch an itchy nose for fear of missing a plant. This went on for row after row, hour after hour, day after day, until all ten acres of our tobacco had been planted.
It was hot, dirty work with little time to talk, especially when learning to drop. Ma often took my turn also, when I became confused and was about to miss. Dad didn’t look kindly on missing plants and would stop when he saw a blank space in another row. He’d make me get off and plant it by hand and give me “H” if too many plants were missing.
David and Howard planting on the old Ellis planter.
Hans Sherpe on the John Deere B.
My brother, David, began dropping a couple years later and we planted many acres together over the next years. We were quite a team and hardly ever missed a plant. I think that came from our fear of catching it if we did! Janet and Arden took over the planting duties after we left for college.
Arden and Janet planting on the new Ellis planter.
Hans Sherpe still driving the John Deere B.
By then Dad had a newer version of the Ellis planter. I wonder if Orville delivered that planter to our farm from Verona?
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