Written By Alice Gibb
In 1939, farmers in Caradoc Township and area welcomed news of a lucrative new cash crop. That moneymaking crop was tobacco. In the late 1930s, about 18 farms had experimented with the crop in western Middlesex County. In the spring of 1939, reports indicated that 50 farmers were ready to try growing the crop.
A history of the tobacco-growing industry in southwestern Ontarioreads something like this. In the early 1920s, farmers in Norfolk County realized that it was commercially advantageous to grow flue-cured tobacco. There was such a rush to plant the crop that by the early 1930s, tobacco growers were concerned about overproduction. This resulted in a panic when some farmers agreed to a sell-at-any-price arrangement.
An organization called the Ontario Flue Cured Tobacco Marketing Association stepped in to bring order to the industry. One solution was for the association to bargain on behalf of farmers with the big buying interests, selling members’ tobacco in a lump sale.
As the demand for tobacco increased, more farmers decided to plant the crop. Unfortunately, applications to join the marketing board fell behind the demand. This resulted in about 9,000,000 pounds of what was called “distressed tobacco” which did not have a guaranteed market, flooding the auctions.
Veteran tobacco growers began regarding newcomers with some concern. They noted that for a tobacco farm acreage of 20 to 40 acres, it cost between $250 and $300 an acre to equip the land with buildings – including the kilns to dry the crop. As well, tobacco was a very labor-intensive crop.
The marketing association in 1939 only included 13 members and the five non-members in West Middlesex who were experimenting with the crop. As well, there were about 30 other independent growers. Many of those were planting tobacco on former potato lands in Caradoc Township – there were 12 growers in the immediate Komoka area.
Tobacco seed, unlike other cash crops, has to be planted in greenhouses to protect the seedlings from fluctuating spring temperatures. Greenhouses cost the farmer between $600 and $1,000 to build, producing enough seedlings for a 35-acre crop. One grower who decided to take a gamble and grow the new crop was Harvey Wales, who bought Noel Gibson’s farm near Komoka. He told a reporter that one of his hands could hold enough tobacco seed to produce a $20,000 crop.
Another West Middlesex grower, August Varewyck, invested about $20,000 to build barns, greenhouses, and kilns on his new tobacco acreage, also near Komoka. Interestingly, his father-in-law, who still lived in Europe, was a noted cigar manufacturer.
For decades, tobacco would prove to be one of the most lucrative cash crops in southwestern Ontario. Who could predict that as smoking habits changed, support for growing tobacco would eventually fall out of favor?
