Tobacco Barn--Johnston County, North Carolina

8 x 10 Oil on Canvas Board ---Another memory revisited---This is a tobacco barn off the road near Benson, N.C. Highway 301 South---Most of the tobacco barns were built with pine tree logs and the cracks between the logs were packed, "daubed", with clay. Tin sheds were often added for weather protection for workers and farm equipment. The tobacco grown in this area is known as "Flue Cured Tobacco", which requires varying and strict temperature controls to cure the tobacco. In early days the bars had brick wood burning furnaces with a series of metal pipes or flues branching out from the furnace going around the barn and up. In order maintain a constant temperature it was required that someone be at the barn at all times to check the temperature and add wood to the furnace as needed. Later coal, fuel oil, and gas were used as fuels to "cure the tobacco."