Old barns stand as reminder of tobacco state's past

Jason Hardin with the Greensboro News & Record has a nice story about the plight of the old tobacco barns that dot the state of North Carolina.

"Tobacco barns were once a ubiquitous sight along rural Piedmont roads, but that's changing fast," writes Hardin.

"The N.C. State Historic Preservation Office estimates that, at tobacco's peak, perhaps a half-million of the barns dotted the state's landscape.

"The current figure might be a tenth of that, with thousands being lost each year, according to the office. ...

The old wooden barns once hummed with activity around harvest time, when farmhands packed them full of bundled tobacco. The tobacco would be heated to cure in the barn until it reached a golden-hued perfection and was ready for sale.

Eventually, larger metal barns replaced the old wooden barns, many of which were left to rot.

Catherine Bishir, an architectural historian with Preservation North Carolina, said the barns tell an important part of the state's agricultural history.

"They're the kind of thing that you take for granted until there's hardly any left," she said. "They're a vanishing breed."

Plan to save a million acres in N.C. 'falling short'

Not good.

"Rising land values have shoved North Carolina well off track with its drive to set aside 1 million acres for preservation by 2009," says the Asheville Citizen-Times.

"Spending on measures that include buying property, development rights and easements have brought in less than half that amount since work started in 1999.

"Advocates say that’s not likely to change — even with the recent $24 million private and public deal that made Chimney Rock North Carolina’s newest state park. ...

"The lag in the N.C. Million Acre Initiative comes at a time when the South is losing more private land to development than any other region. In North Carolina, the rate of development in 2005 was twice that of conservation efforts. ..."