Canesister's 2025 journal - Bushel & Peck Farm

[fuzzi]

Conn and Mass used to have LOTS of dairy farms... before that there were quite a few TOBACCO farms in CT.... YES, tobacco... used to be alot of the big barns where they put the tobacco in to hang and dry...
Land got too high, milk prices were too low... farms sold out grew into lots and lots of houses...
Sad, the small farmer just can't make it on 50 cow farms... most can't make it on 100 cow herds down here anymore.

I remember seeing the big LONG wood barns, and the cheesecloth netting covering the fields for growing shade tobacco. They referred to it as "Tobacco Valley". The barn sides were made of wood planks that could be pushed outward to increase air flow.

Found a reference:

Windsor Tobacco: Made in the Shade - Connecticut History | a CTHumanities Project

By the mid-19th century, the "Tobacco Valley," Springfield, Massachusetts to Hartford, Connecticut had become a center for cash-crop production.

connecticuthistory.org