Trouble in the land of the golden leaf

Text and Photograph by JAMIE FRANCIS

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 4, 2000

Big tobacco found Bryant and Carrie Deas in the spring of 1925, the same year their son Quinteen was born, and the discovery was a godsend for the North Florida dirt farmers.

The Great Depression was still four years away, but the boll weevil had already decimated their one cash crop, long cotton, and left them desperate for help. When a stranger from North Carolina showed up talking tobacco, they were eager to listen.

The man's name was J.C. Thornton, and he spent the summer living with the Deases in their log home near Jennings. He taught eager farmers along the Florida side of the Georgia border how to grow the flue-cured leaf from the Tar Heel state. He even offered the Deases $10 to name their child after him, but Bryant and Carrie had already settled on Quinteen.

Even now, as three generations of Deases say grace around a home-cooked lunch of beef stew, white rice, peas, green beans, rolls, pound cake and peaches, the legacy of Thornton lives on. He is, after all, the reason they are still farming tobacco.

The tired and wrinkled leaves look out of place as workers fling them into wooden wagons and tromp them level. Their golden hue is an abrupt break with the lush green meadows in the distance. But for Damon Deas, the grandson of Bryant and Carrie and the son of Quinteen, the autumn glow of these leaves is heavenly.

"There are two colors that tobacco companies don't like," says Deas, pausing for effect. "Green and black; they won't hardly buy either color."

If the leaves show green, the farmer is blamed for cropping his tobacco too soon from the stalk. If the leaves show black, the farmer is blamed for letting his tobacco get wet or sweat too much as it cooks.

Damon is the tobacco cooker on the Deas farm these days. He presides over the 43 airtight cooking barns for their 270 acres of tobacco. During the 10-week cropping season, which began in June, the barns are the first and last worry of his day.

Cooking begins at 90 degrees and gradually increases for seven days until it tops out at 160 degrees. If the propane burner that heats the tobacco fires too hot early in the process, an entire barn could be lost, and, depending on the price of tobacco, that would be a $6,000 or $7,000 mistake.

That's nothing compared to the numbers that lawyers and big tobacco are tossing at each other in courtrooms across the country, but a few bad barns will make a difference for the Deas family and the 20 or so workers who depend on their farm for a living.

The whole sordid mess of tobacco farming today is confusing for the Deases. They watch the battles and wonder what will happen to their livelihood.

They would never advocate smoking for minors. Then again, they see the 90 other countries that grow tobacco and they believe their Florida crop is the best. As the industry grew in the past decades, the Deas operation grew with it, so now they either keep farming or sell the land and pay their debts.

Quinteen, the baby who was born in the year of big tobacco, is 75 now. When he heads for his pickup for a ride around the farm, his two blackmouth cur cow dogs, Billy and Willie, are by his side.

This ground was once saved by a stranger who represented big tobacco, the product that has always traded in hard currency, the commodity that everyone wants.

To contact Jamie Francis, call (727) 893-8319 or e-mail jfrancis@sptimes.com

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