This gentleman is actually mapping the soil series for this field. USDA Soil Conservation Service produced a soils map for most if not all counties in North Carolina. His name is Ed Karnowski and he was a soil scientist.

I used this picture in my book, "Promise of Better Days" as representative of man measuring tobacco. However, Joe Williams, of Duplin County, after reading my book describes the picture as following: The picture on page 73 is not measuring tobacco. The man is Ed Karnowshi with the Soil Conservation Service in Beaufort County and he is preparing a soils map of the area. The photograph he has is to the scale of an inch equals 1320 feet. ASCS used photos with a scale of an inch equals 660 feet. On these photos a square inch equaled 10 acres. Once a field of tobacco was plotted on the photo a rotometer was used to determine the acreage. Usually this was done by the office staff, but could be done in the field on the hood of a car.