From: "frank theriault" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 8:19 PM, Mark Roberts <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> > There's some pretty serious moonshine operations out there. Places with >> > virtual private armies where the police don't even like to go. Dealing >> > in moonshine and North Carolina's second biggest cash crop (after >> > tobacco, of course) - marijuana. > > I still can't get over smoking in restaurants in North Carolina. I > guess you don't want to bite the hand that feeds you, but still... > > Mind you, I noticed the smoke as I peered through the steam rising off > my plate of biscuits and gravy (something we don't have in The Great > White North, I'm afraid). Man they tasted good! I suspect, however > that a steady diet of those things would clog the arteries in about > six months (although one young lady was telling us that she had them > every single morning, and she seemed quite healthy...).
Most restaurants around here (Raleigh, NC) do not allow smoking. The few that still do have a separate section. Tobacco is still the number one money crop in NC, but it's dying out. The quasi-federal organization that used to control Tobacco production is no more, and more of today's tobacco is imported from overseas. North Carolina farmers can't compete with cheap third world production. Nor is Marijuana second. That honor goes to peanuts & soybeans depending on who has the better harvest in any given year. Most of North Carolina's peanut and soybean production is used for oil production. And NON-crop farm products - hogs, turkeys & chicken all out-strip peanuts & soybeans, so marijuana comes in sixth or seventh place. And that's only because a very little bit of pot sells for a whole lot of money. Tobacco got to be top cash crop selling $1.60 to $2.00 per pound to the farmer. You could produce 2500 pounds per acre in a good year. Tobacco costs about $1.50 a pound to produce no matter what kind of year it is, so when prices were low farmers didn't do so good. The average NC farmer had a crop allotment of 50 - 75 acres for tobacco on maybe a 100 - 200 acre farm. The allotment was all the tobacco the farmer was permitted to plant, and would allow him to sell a certain number of pounds per acre, based on the previous year's crop. So, if he had a good year, and got better than expected yield, he had excess tobacco he couldn't sell, had to carry over to another year AND saw his poundage cut back the next year. Plus, he had to store the unsold tobacco where it wouldn't rot. Fifty acres @ 2500 pounds of $1.90/pound leaf gives an income of about $56,000 after paying the production loans, and that's BEFORE taxes. That paid the bills. Soybeans & peanuts ... corn for animal feed gave a little fall-back for the years when tobacco didn't do so good. It's not easy work either. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
