Troubled times for New England tobacco farmers

By BOB SALSBERG (AP)

SOUTHWICK, Mass. — They're among the lucky few, John, Fred and Dave Arnold. There's a good supply of crisp broadleaf tobacco drying in their 14 curing sheds and over the next couple of weeks they'll be pulling it down, bundling it up and selling it for the best price they can get. Pretty much what their family has done every year since the 1830s in the Connecticut River Valley.

There's no better place in America to grow broadleaf and shade tobacco, the kinds used for premium cigar wrappers and binders. But these are troubled times along New England's own tobacco road, roughly 75 miles straddling western Massachusetts and Connecticut.

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