I was surprised to see this truck of harvested tobacco as I left my friend's house this afternoon. The tobacco usually turns brown before they harvest it, and it's still very green, as you can see from the field in the pic above. Couldn't get a pic of the actual harvest because I was on a main road when I saw them in the field. They don't havest by hand any more, but they do remove the flowers from the top by hand about mid-season.
My husband spent many summers picking tobacco leaves by hand in hot, humid fields. It's hard, nasty, filthy work. They would start with just one set of clothing at the beginning of harvest, never wash them, and burn them when the season was over. The tobacco gum would ruin your washing machine.