Unfortunately I have no idea what a tobacco plant looks like; however I do know that Scenic express has a large selection of plants and trees to select from & that would be my first place to look. http://www.scenicexpress.com/ Sorry I wasn't able to privide anymore assistance than that. But you got me curious now and I will be checking back to view the outcome. Good luck
Here it is in HO Scale: http://www.geocities.com/bkempins/ASMMain/Tobacco.html Although you may be able to use that in N; may be worthwhile to get some and try it out. They do make corn in N scale and it looks great: N Scale Corn HO Scale Tobacco Jamie
Jamie - the Alkem stuff is what I was looking for! I actually have an HO scale tobacco barn from B.T.S. Structures that I need HO tobacco for. Also noticed they have sumac - something else I need in HO. Maybe if we let Alkem know we're looking for it, they'll make some N tobacco and sumac, too. The amazing thing is that I need corn in N - they have it!
"Unfortunately I have no idea what a tobacco plant looks like" Hope this helps... http://static.flickr.com/59/162189259_8cead57825.jpg http://whyfiles.org/166plant_vaccines/images/tobacco_2.jpg http://www.biopsychiatry.com/tobacco/tobacco.jpg http://farm1.static.flickr.com/220/505341740_f021f33d53.jpg In looking at the photos one of the first things I thought of was HO scale corn that could have the bottom half cut off...
I used the cheapest, roughest artificial grass I could find. Then I took wire brushes to scruff it up as much as I had endurance for--it's pretty tough stuff. Then I used spray paints to vary the color. It does not stand up to close scrutiny, except as a generic crop. I bought the stuff at a big box--exactly one foot in length by about six feet wide. The salesperson looked at me a little weird.
I have some of the corn (and a brass windmill) in a box somewhere around here. I think I picked it up at a train show about 10 years ago, back when I was planning on modeling BNSF in the Texas panhandle. Boy that seems like a loooooooong time ago! They did have a painted display of the corn and it looked great. I never would have thought of brass corn. Jamie
Alkem Scale Models is a supplier of HO scale tobacco plants, Tim. I tried to include the link to them in this post, but the website blocked my post because I just signed up today, and it makes you wait 3 days for the right to post links. I ran across this in a Yahoo search (on "N scale tobacco plants"), and am tearing my hair out as to how to simulate them in N scale.... I need a tobacco field to go along with my scatchbuilt tobacco barn & harvester..... Maybe I can find a way to cut down the HO plants & thus adapt them to N scale.
Very familiar with tobacco fields because as a youngster I worked a season on a Uncle's farm and harvested tobacco. Back then It was a mule and a wagon and hand picking. Usually scattered about the edges of the fields were the tobacco curing barns made from logs and about two stories high. A large propane tank situated to the side provided the heat for curing and there was always a lean to type shed open on all sides except where it abutted the barn where the tobacco was strung on long stakes to be hung inside the barn for curing. So yet another modeling perspective. Some of the ones I have observed in Southern VA are built on slight slopes and have a walk out basement room for what they term cool curing. The heat cured tobacco on its stakes is a rich brown color while the cool cured has a slight greenish tint. It is shipped to the auction warehouses in bundles and not on the stakes. Gives you a modeling perspective from the earlier era. Since the tobacco leaf is a broad rounded type leaf I really can't think of anything right now that would duplicate that. However depending on the time of the year modeled the size of the plant varies so maybe the HO scale plant can be cut down some to represent N scale. Can get a lot in that scene if one wants too. The barns could be modeled using mini dowels from the craft store. All of them I have seen had rough logs with wide white mortar lines between the logs. The logs usually had aged to a nice grey color and the roofs seemed to always be metal with most of them having a fair amount of rust showing. And of course there was always the single smoke stack made of metal and capped to keep the rain out either mounted high on the side or on the roof. As a side note later in life on a few hunting trips to Southern VA we would often gather at the barn to sample the latest (ahem) spirits bottled in a mason jar that were stored in the barn.
Also Tim, I just found a place called reynaulds.com that sells a better HO scale tobacco field kit than Alkem. Their number is (888) 762-6872.
John: Instead of picking we called it cropping in NC - which I lasted about 10 minutes doing. I could never tell ripe tobacco from green and if it was yellow it cured out black. I was stuck with handing to the girls(always girls) stringing the tobacco then us handers had to hang it in the barn - hauling a heavy stick of tobacco to the top of the barn to hang was no easy task. Our barns used kerosene for flue curing so a 50 gallon drum beside the barn would be appropriate. Al
a/k/a rocket fuel The Moonshine display is the only area within the Tobacco Museum in Smithfield, NC where smoking is prohibited (ok, that was in the late 80's).
