Growing Tobacco - A Cash Crop

Cash Crop or Devils Cabbage?

This has been a wonderful year for tobacco in Lancaster County.  Due to the abundance of rain it has grown larger that I have ever seen it.  Harvest has come early and the first sign is seeing the farmers out working with their tobacco. 

The tobacco leaves are picked and then speared onto lathes and left in the field for a few days to dry

It is then picked up and put in a tobacco shed or any warm dry area.  After a few months of drying (In November or so) the tobacco dealers will come around, examine the quality and buy it from the farmer.

Brought to the area in 1825 to combat the financial distress of  the 1820's, tobacco is called a cash crop because it is used for profit rather than consumption.  Since 1917 it has been a great controversy by Amish and Mennonite  to grow it or not.  Many believe that is wrong to "raise tobacco, or grow an article that destroys human character" and have stopped growing it calling it  the "devils cabbage".   Finally to stop the controversy some church groups made the decision that if your farm was not paid off you could grow tobacco, if it was paid off you didn't need the extra cash and were asked to refrain from growing it.