Tobacco Pickers Extend Tradition

Source from:  Sunday, August 05, 2007 By GEORGE GRAHAMggraham@repub.com  08/06/2007

Teenagers working the 150 acres of Stuart S. Arnold's shade tobacco farm in Westfield this summer are well-versed in the lingo of their temporary trade. "It's a hard job suckering," said 17-year-old Brian R. Mountain of Southwick as he and about a half-dozen peers took a lunch break on a sunny afternoon "I like sewing," said Evan V. Serella, also of Southwick. Suckering, said Mountain and his co-workers, is probably the most difficult, or at least the most unpleasant, aspect of this summer job. It involves scrabbling in the mud at the base of each plant, removing its lower - or sucker - leaves and then mounding the soil around the base of the plant for increased stabilization. Serella's sewing, meanwhile, does not involve anything resembling your mother's Singer sewing machine. It instead involves the use of a industrial-type machine that strings the tobacco leaves together so they can be hung in one of Arnold's six barns to dry. "It's you versus the machine," Serella said. "It's definitely hard." Other jobs include hoeing and what Arnold describes as "winding to the wire" - the process in which the growing plant is bound by string to its guide wire Some 25 teenagers and another 10 Jamaican migrant workers work here each summer in what amounts to the perhaps the region's most emblematic summer job They help Arnold to grow, harvest and cure his crop of premiumwrapper tobacco, most of which ends up in places like England or the Dominican Republic where it is used to wrap fine cigars. "These kids are hard workers, and it keeps them out of trouble," Arnold said. It's clear the summer workers are very busy. In a good season Arnold said he can produce about 1,000 pounds of shade tobacco per acre. "You have to be willing to work," Mountain said of the fast-paced workday which runs from 7 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. and includes a 45-minute break for lunch. For this they get $9.50 an hour. "It's great hours," Mountain said, adding that the work day is easy to adapt to because it's similar to school hours. Those entrusted with additional responsibilities, like Michael P. Sico, of Southwick, who ferrys the freshly-harvest tobacco to the barns by pickup truck, earn a little more. Sico, now on his sixth summer with Arnold, is a junior at Springfield College. Sico and the others, who exchanged an easy-going banter over the course their lunch break, said they enjoy the camaraderie of working hard as a team over the summers. "All your friends are here so it goes easier," Sico said. The best part of the job? Arnold clearly ranks up there for his teen workers. "I love Stuart basically," Serella said. "He treats you with the respect that you deserve." But perhaps even better is the pay. "On Fridays, at 3:45 (p.m.) I love that check," Serella said. "You need money when you are a teenager," Mountain said, adding that a lot of his hard-earned green goes towards things like gasoline and insurance for his vehicle. Late last month the workers began harvesting Arnold's crop. They pick by hand, removing three 18- to 20-inch leaves from each of the plants, when they get a pad of about 20 leaves, they leave it along the row to be gathered and hauled to the truck. Then they pick 20 and 20 more and so-on down the line. Over the course of the harvest, each tobacco plant goes through the same three-leaf pickings six times, Arnold said The tobacco is then hauled to the barns where it is sewn and then hung to dry for six or seven weeks. If shade tobacco is synonymous with the region, the extended Arnold family is pretty much synonymous with shade tobacco in this part of the Pioneer Valley. Arnolds have grown tobacco here for three generations, and there are about eight active family farms in the area, Arnold said. Arnold, who does business as S. Arnold and Co., purchased his 150 acres, part of the former Clarke Farm, off South Meadow Road, just last year. Before that he leased land in Southwick to grow his crop. Arnold said he spent teenage summer years doing the same as his current charges. "It's all I have ever known, all I have ever done," Arnold said, when asked if he enjoyed his teenage labors. Enditem