 After successive seasons of wet weather that dampened prospects for cultivation, by 1910 hundreds of Connecticut farmers were growing shade tobacco.In 1922, farmers formed the Connecticut Valley Tobacco Association, with members pledging to sell their entire crop to the association which would then warehouse it in an attempt to better control prices.By the middle of the 20th century, 16,000 acres of shade tobacco were under cultivation, with fields tended by laborers from the south and the Caribbean who worked long hours for little pay.