WIMBY FREE PRESS, WEDNESDAY, AÙIGUST3, 11988, PAGE 5 Tobacco. It is a king of cash crops on farmland in southwestern On- tario. If the blues sung by today's tobacco farmers has begun to get a grip on your heart, just rememnber: it weren't alwaysso. Fifty years ago, tobacco turned some of the cheapest marginal land into 1"golden acres. " Farms that my grandfather described as "fit only for church mice" could be bought in the thirties for under $1,000; by the fifties, the same land (complete with tobac co marketing board acreage allotments) sold for'upwards of $100,000. This, when mixed farms in prime location of the same size sold for nder $20,000. The richness of the crop made farm labor for tobacco harvest highly paid. For five years in the late fifties and early sixties I slugged out several weeks of tobacco har- vest. Stompin' Tom Connors likely put down the feelings best in a song called, simply, 'Tillsonburg'. It was a job which took astrong back and a weak mind. .Priming was the job of picking leaves off of plants. The leaves snapped off easily; were big (about eighteen inches long and eight to ten inches wide) ; and dirty. But it wasn't the dirt that impressed usmost. What did was $16 a day for Up to seven days a week. In the fifties the average industrial wage was about $60 a week, or $12 a day. A job in tobacco gave us the first opportunity to make more than our fathers. (Or mohes since mine was one of those rarities of the time, a working mother.) Butbackto 'priming'. The trick of the job lay in a combination of factors. First, the tobacco plants ripikned fromn the bottomn up. Thus, the first picking fromn any field started with the 'sand leaves '-- the leaves closest to the ground. How close? Usually fromn one to four inches. The leaves ripened in threes. This meant the 'Primer' i Fke in WITH OUR FEET UP by Bill Swan Cash crops would walk down the row and pick the bottom three leaves f rom every plant. Picture, now, the posture of such a worker. The leaves were picked with one hand, snap, snap, snap, and whipped under the opposite armp. Two, three, four more steps, tWo, three, four more bunches of leaves. Whip, under the arm. When the lef t arm could hold no more you straightened up and headed for the 'boat', a horse-drawn stone boat with canvass sides to hold the picked leaves. Dump the leaves into the boat. Back to your row. Snap, snap, snap. Itmiakes my back ache just rememberiflg. The day started in the field at 7 a.m. Now I don't know if you've ever tried to walk through a field of corn or similar Tinte A CONTEST FOR SUMMER STROLLERS AND SUNDAY DRIVERS Sponsored by Whitby'8 LACAC* to encourage an awareness of our local architectural heritage Each week until September, the Whitby Free Press will publish a picture of artarchitectural detail of a building somewhere in Whitby (including Brooklin, Ashburn and Myrtie). A draw will be made from ail correct entries (only one per person per week) received by the following Tuesday morning at 10:00 amn. The winner each week will receive a boelÉ courtesy of LACAC. The winner's naine and the correct answer will be published in the following issue of the Free Press along with a new mystery detail. Ifyou can identify this picture, submit entry below to the ~ < 1' Wine Free Press,. 131 Brock St., N., Whitby, LMN 5S1. Winrwill be selected next Tueday at 10:0amn.-- èLOCATION________ _____ Your Name Address Phone No.____________________ *Local Architectural Conservation Advisory Committee 141ent ries will be entered in a grand prize draw. Last Week's Winner J. (Bud) Heard Whitby TuE OL) ONTARIO BANKR This unusual brick building at the corner of Brock and Elm St., was bujît in 1867 as the Whitby branch of the Ontario Bank which had begun 10 years carlier with its head office in Bowmanville. It was built for a total cost of $6,000 by Chester Draper, a wealthy entrepreneur who was the owner of Whitby harbor. The buildings original safe with double iron doors and a 10 foot square fireproof arched vault is still present on the first floor. taîl vegetation at 7 a.m. on an August morning. Take my word for it: it's wet. So wet, we started Most days wearîng raincoats. Snap, snap, snap. Drip, drip, drip. Despite the raincoats, the water soaked through; within zxinutes we weredrenched. The August sun dried Up the dew before 9 a.m. jFrom then on the day was a battlew ith the sand, the sun, tje heat. For despite the strong sun, we couldn't take off our shirts. Long sleeves were the rule. You see, the tobacco plant is cultivated because of a unique combination of tars it contains. TranýIated, this means that the sap, or juice, from a tobacco plant is sticky, black stuff that adheres to skin, turns clothing into asphaît and balîs up into littie knots on the hair on your arms, or anywhere else for that matter. Once a day's work was begun, it had to be comipleted. See, if it started to ramn before we picked a leaf, then we didn't start work. That was the rule. If we picked a leaf, then we had to pick a whole kiln full, or else waste the lot. No farmer wanted to waste green gold. Therefore, we often workedin the rain. This meant we got soaked. Some cool days in August we shivered, our skin shriveling. The tobacco sap ran down our hats, across our faces, dripped off the upper lip. Tobacco juice tastes,.horrid; it is a bitter, poisonous, vile tar; it recommend it to no one. By the late sixties, tobacco harvest becam mechanized. Huge priming machines loaded the whole CC ew of people together and propelled them down rows lik -portable fac- tories. Primers no longer had to break backs; they just sat on a seat ail day and waited for the leaves to come to them. I neyer did take to that. I'm sure Stompin' Tom would have agreed: it took ail the romance out of the job. I've neyer done it since. Rogers adds services Beginning Sept. 1, Rogers Cable TV will add four services to its basic . service for subscribers in the Pine Ridge area which includes Whitby. Added will be YTV (Your Entertainment Network), which is Canadian and international children's and family-oriented programming, 18 hours a day; WeatherNow, a 24-hour-a-day weather information service; and Vision TV, multi ' -faith programming from 6 p.rn. t midnight. Also to be added, as of Sept. 1, to the basic service is MuchMusic, the 24- hour-a-day music video and information station. One new pay TV channel, the Family Channel, will also be offered, cither alone or as part of a pay TV package. The Faxnily Channel includes Disney En- tertainment and other shows, 19 hours every day. The Sports Network will continue Wo be available in pay TV packagzes. If approved by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecom- munications Commission (CRTC), the basic cable rate will increase to $14.44 from $12.40 per month, effective Sept. 1.- (~)IIIQL\S 0F GQLD & DIAM0rSýD CENTRE O.Mmmm7 77N7mZmmA rm 7 *Address -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---Apt.--- -- -- -- *City -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ----PC.--- -- -- - Phone:Res.--- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --- i Bus.--- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --- *Anniversarv Date- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---- * Entry must be in, before 9 p.m. *on Sat. August 20, 1988 a No purchase necessary mm m m m u m m m m Ladies' diamond cluster 14 K. Appraised value $1,650.00 and get an additional 10% off our already low prices! I Not valid in corijurction with any other coupon offer. à between Miracle Food Mart & Woolco 10 a.m. - 9:30 p.m. Monday - Saturday Special Ser-vices * Watch Repair *Jewdllcry repair *We boy aid jcwellcry Trade-ins *'Estate jeweicx *Appraisats * Custom Decsign 436- 9070 nom,