Tom Hayman, Pasquotank Yacht Builder, Has Impressive Patch of Tobacco, July 4, 1919

From The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., July 4, 1919

Tom Hayman Raises a Crop of Tobacco and Shows That This Fine Money Crop Will Grow Fine in Pasquotank

Tom Hayman of Elizabeth City, who builds yachts for a living and indulges in a little intensive farming on the side, has a patch of tobacco 5 weeks old that reaches above his waist. A Granville county tobacco grower who was done here last week says that Hayman’s tobacco is prettier and more luxuriant in growth than any he has seen in his home county, which is in the banner tobacco section of North Carolina.

Hayman has made a careful study of tobacco culture, and any farmer who wishes to clean up some coin on this highly profitable crop can get the dope from him. He plans to air-cure his tobacco, having plenty of shed room for the purpose. Veteran tobacco growers claim that this is the surest and best way to produce the clean bright leaf that has the highest commercial value.

Pasquotank county farmers have never taken hold of tobacco as a money crop. The few sporadic attempts heretofore made to grow tobacco in this county, undertaken by men who had neither experience or knowledge of how to care for the crop, have naturally produced discouraging results. It remained for Hayman to go after the proposition in the right way, and show that tobacco can be raised here as well as anywhere else in the State. Perquimans county farmers have already taken up tobacco growing on a small scale.