Burley tobacco beefs up mountain farming.

• Position: Western

Hard times are bringing back fond memories for farmers in western North Carolina. Burley, the state's other tobacco, is rebounding there, playing on its ability to generate substantial cash from small plots tended by family farmers and part-timers. "Down east, you see thousand-acre tobacco farms," says Jeff Bradley, agricultural agent for Buncombe and several other counties. "Here, you've got 1 - or 2-acre plots--maybe 5--because there's just not that much tillable land. You plant little patches where you can."

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A heavy leaf blended with flue-cured tobacco in cigarettes, burley doesn't pack the economic wallop of the state's main strain. Last year's crop sold for less than 1% of the more than $500 million fetched by the flue-cured variety. But it's better suited to the cool mountain climate and requires less labor and investment, making it attractive to families in which the breadwinner has lost a job. It fell out of favor in 2004, when the federal government bought out tobacco allotments and quit supporting prices. Acreage dropped from about 8,000 in 1998 to fewer than 3,500 in 2008. Many farmers used money from the buyout to buy cattle, says Elizabeth Ayers, agricultural extension agent in Madison...