A Concise History of Kentucky

8 Working in Kentucky

C H A P T E R E I G H T Working in Kentucky Over the years, Kentucky has been known for producing coal, tobacco, bourbon, horses, and perhaps fried chicken, but is that a true picture of its present-day economy? Farming In the early days, most people in Kentucky made their living on farms. On the frontier, almost everyone planted corn, for instance, since it provided food for both people and animals. It also grew tall, which kept the ears of corn beyond the reach of small animals that might try to eat it. Later, farmers began to grow other crops on their farms. In the years before the Civil War, Kentucky planted many different crops and became one of the richest farming states. In 1840, for example , it ranked first in the United States in the production of wheat and hemp. It ranked second in growing corn and tobacco and fourth in producing rye. Of all the states, only one other had more hogs or mules. Kentucky had a very healthy and varied farming economy. Hemp served as the main cash crop for Kentucky before the Civil War. At that time, people used the plant to make rough clothing. In addition , they produced hemp bags to ship cotton and hemp rope for use on sailing ships. Kentucky grew more than half the hemp in America. After the Civil War, people began to use metal wire for cotton bales, and steamboats replaced sailing ships. Kentucky continued to grow hemp, however, and by the end of the century, it produced almost all the hemp in the country. But it was a dying crop. In the twentieth century, it disappeared from Kentucky farms, although another variation of it would appear later in the form of marijuana plants. As the demand for hemp was decreasing, tobacco prices were rising , and Kentucky farmers made the decision to switch crops. Instead of the tall, waving stalks of hemp, tobacco became the main cash crop on Kentucky farms. From 1865 to 1929, Kentucky grew more tobacco 128 • A Concise History of Kentucky than any other state. It now ranks second to North Carolina in tobacco production. People used tobacco in the nineteenth century mostly for cigars and chewing tobacco; only in the twentieth century did machine-made cigarettes become more common. On the frontier, people could even use tobacco to pay their taxes. As the demand for tobacco grew, so did the supply. Soon farmers were planting more tobacco than buyers needed. Without any controls or restrictions, prices fell, then rose, then fell again. Earlier, when farmers had grown many different crops, a change in the price of one crop did not matter so much, since the sale of other crops would help even out the difference.Now,with a one-crop economy,farmers had either good years or bad years, depending on the price of tobacco. Finally, the government stepped in and helped bring about steady prices. Kentucky Voices Marmaduke B. Morton, a newspaper reporter, wrote the book Kentuckians Are Different in 1938. In it, he described working on a tobacco farm in western Kentucky in the nineteenth century: None of the modern methods of handling tobacco had been discovered 75 years ago. In the winter the plant beds were burned. The seeds were sown by hand and patted in by dancing over the seed bed so that not one would be left exposed. The plants were generally drawn for [re]planting in June. We had no planting machines in those days. Plants were drawn from the bed by hand, dropped in the prepared ground by hand, and planted by hand. The planting was a back-breaking job. The little plants were hoed by hand. When they grew larger they were wormed by hand. When a boy got careless and left a big fat worm, he was sometimes required to bite off the worm’s head. Now the use of poison to destroy the worms has lightened his job. Late in the summer or early in the fall, the tobacco was cut and then hung in the barn, where it was either air cured or fired [fire-cured]. When it was dried out, it was stripped [from the stalk]—some mean job. Then the tobacco was sent to market. By that time, the farmer had to start working on the plant beds for the next crop, for growing tobacco was and is an almost all-year process. [3.128.199.162] Project...