Show carolina farmers turn to raising beef cattle cow punching gunchin 9 long ass associated with the song and story of the W western e st plains has taken root in the tobacco lands of north carolina Caroli iia but the glamorous cowboy with his six sho shooters 0 did not come east with the cattle instead practical farmers with an eye to the european situation tia tion rids ride the carolina ranges in rifled pickup trucks in the late sixteenth century sir walter raleigh started the tobacco business by offering queen elizabeth a puff on an indians pipe she like it but a lot of others did and years later north carolina which sir walter first colonized led the world in both the growth and manufacture of the weed then again in england some something thir ig happened wh which ch may vitally affect the business involved in war britain closed its doors to amerl american can tobacco at once the carolina growers closed their markets and kept them closed until the majority of farmers had signed an agreement to curtail sharply the 1940 crop that kept the 1939 prices from dropping disastrously but there was still the problem of what to do with the land and men engaged in tobacco grow ing many turned to beef cattle r and herds most of them small but some of almost western proportions were imported like their cousins in the hills and mountains of western north caro ca ro lina who have developed a sizable beef cattle industry over a period of years the easterners are leaning to tile hereford breed in the mean time several packing plants have arranged to open li branches ranches near the new range |