tobacco shed Archives – J. G. Coleman Photography

"Yankee Farmlands № 87" (Tobacco shed in Windsor, Connecticut) — “Yankee Farmlands № 87”
Windsor, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

Beside radiant autumn forests flush with an October palette, shadows embrace a rickety old tobacco shed freshly divested of its cured crop. Bare tobacco stalks, having been stripped of their leaves, lay piled upon a trailer ready to be carted away.

“Connecticut broadleaf tobacco is the Dangerfield of the cigar industry, a rumpled everyman tobacco that gets little respect,” wrote one journalist, kicking off a piece in a Cigar Aficionado magazine. And there’s truth to that assessment: broadleaf lives in the proverbial shadow of world-famous Connecticut shade tobacco, the two varieties forever vying for turf in the same fertile soils of the Connecticut Valley.

But while Connecticut broadleaf may not enjoy the same mystique as its shade-grown counterpart, its bold taste –described as a “heavy, muscular flavor” in the same Aficionado article– nonetheless earns it a spot in everything from machine-made Backwoods cigars to premium, hand-crafted maduros.

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Click here to visit my landing page for “Yankee Farmlands № 87” to buy a beautiful fine art print or inquire about licensing this image.

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Be sure to check out all of the work from my Yankee Farmlands project.

Yankee Farmlands № 68 (Tobacco sheds & wildflowers, Windsor, Connecticut) — “Yankee Farmlands № 68”
Tobacco sheds & wildflowers, Windsor, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

Beside creaky, derelict tobacco sheds besieged by prying vines, a brilliant mosaic of ox-eye daises, cow vetch, wheat and field grasses blankets an overgrown field in Central Connecticut’s waning Tobacco Valley.

By the mid-1800s, Connecticut had reached its peak level of deforestation in human history. As much as 70% to 80% of the state had been clear-cut, with a good deal of that acreage ultimately finding use as pastures, hayfields and croplands. But agriculture began a steady a decline from that point forward. Enormous swaths of farmland were abandoned as folks sought work in flourishing industrial cities or headed out west in search of new opportunities. Many towns throughout Connecticut had lost half of their population before 1900.

It’s no surprise that scenes such as this one, with fields and pastures growing wild and barns left to decay, would have been a familiar sight to folks living in Southern New England during the latter half of the 1800s. Most all of Connecticut’s modern forests, which now cover more than half the state, grew upon the deserted soil of those long-vanished farms.

Purchase a Fine Art Print or Inquire About Licensing

Click here to visit my landing page for “Yankee Farmlands № 68” to buy a beautiful fine art print or inquire about licensing this image.

Want to See More?

Be sure to check out all of the work in my on-going Yankee Farmlands project.