Ripe tobacco waits for no man, not even N.C. Commissioner of Agriculture Steve Troxler.

Troxler was still trying to get across the crowded fairgrounds — he claimed his golf cart wouldn't start — when it was his team's turn at the annual tobacco tying contest in Heritage Circle this afternoon.

"I told him to be here on time," said Billy Yeargin, a professor of Southern culture at Duke University and emcee of the contest. "He's disqualified."

But Troxler showed up just before the timer started and took his place as one of two "handers," taking cut leaves of Granville County tobacco off a cart and handing them to the team's "looper," who quickly tied the bundles with cotton twine onto a stick.

A dozen teams registered for the competition, which showcases a skill once known to thousands of farm workers in Eastern North Carolina.

For the competition, judges consider how long it took each time to fill the stick, the size of each bundle, the length of stem above the stick and how tight the tobacco is tied.

Troxler's team was a little slow, at a minute thirty-eight seconds. Other teams whisked through the chore twenty seconds faster.

Are men and women really that different? Apparently when it comes to sweet potatoes, they are.

That’s the word from Russel Slate (a.k.a “Pa” Tater), a 62-year-old farmer from Lawsonville who oversees the potato exhibit at the Expo Center. Last year, he explained, eight men and eight women sampled two varieties of sweet potatoes - the Stokes Purple and the Beauregard. The results were revealing.

“All eight men preferred the purple potato because it was creamy with a firm texture,” Slate said. “But seven out of eight of the women liked the Beauregard because it was softer.”

However, when the women were told that the Stokes Purple was better for them - it has twice the Vitamin E of blueberries, Slate said enthusiastically - “they said they’d switch.”

Who knew?

Slate said he doesn’t sell his favorite variety of sweet potatoes. “The Covingtons and the Beauregards are the most popular types because you can get 650 to 750 boxes of them per acre,” he said. “But the Puerto Ricans are the sweetest and best. Thing is they’re the ugliest things you’ve ever seen, and you can only get about 150 to 200 boxes of them per acre.”

He paused, then added, “Farmers like to say ‘We plant many to sell and a few to eat.'”

The music was first rate but the lyrics left a little to be desired: hum-in-a, hum-in-a, hum-in-a, 2, hum-in-a, hum-in-a, 3, sold American.

At least that’s what the tobacco auctioneer’s sing-song cadence sounded like as he demonstrated his talent at the Exposition Center. The lovely sounds of his call — a mix of earthy folk blues and birdsong — only mattered to those pretending to buy the 200 pound sacks of golden leaf tobacco. Still some inquiring minds wanted to know: What is he saying.

“Mostly numbers,” explained 70-year-old G. Sherwood Stewart, who auctioned tobacco from Georgia to Kentucky for almost 50 years. “I say the bid, 81, 1,1 until I get two, then 82, 2, 2, 2, 83, 3.”

Stewart’s parents were tenant farmers in Smithfield. “I saw how hard my father worked and thought there has to be a better way than this,” he said.

He saw his first auction at age 10 and began working when he was 15. He stopped in 2001, as the tobacco industry phased out the auction system in favor of contracts.

Stewart said his wife had always told him he had musical talent. “She said that if I put as much energy into country music as I did into auctioneering, I would have been a star. But my heart was always in tobacco.”

In what may be the quietest nook of the State Fair, a walled-off corner of the Jim Graham Building, sit 24 squares of hay, each with a prize ribbon.

Who knew that hay can be superlative? Heck, who knew there were different kinds?

Hay seems like a timeless crop, one that would change — if at all — at a Darwinian pace. There’s hot news from the hay front, though: There is a growing locavore movement for, uh, herbivores.

North Carolina can produce fabulous hay, and people rally should try to buy local, said Sue Ellen Johnson, a forage specialist with the Department of Crop Science at N.C. State University, one of the two contest judges.

The N.C. Cooperative Extension and the North Carolina Forage and Grassland Council — which sponsor the contest — are promoting the growth of high-quality hay in the state. Indeed, the winning entries at the fair are often used for demonstrations. The sponsors also are hoping to persuade more horse owners and cattle farmers to buy local hay.

There are nine potential types of hay that can be entered — though only entries in eight categories this year. They are graded on a range of qualities. Weeks before the fair, entrants have to submit samples of their hay for analysis in a lab. It’s checked for protein and fiber content — less fiber means more useful mass — and nitrates, which can be harmful.

Early on the first day of the fair, the judges examined each entry again and again, checking for impurities such as rocks, mustiness that would signify mold, leafiness and “excessive leaf shatter” — meaning leaves that are so dry they are likely to crumble and fall away as the hay is handled.

If the cows and horses knew about the contest, they might well break out of their pens. Some of this stuff — the best alfalfa entries for example — smell almost good enough for a human to eat.

Big, blue ribbons are nice, to be sure. But for some exhibitors of animals at the fair, a winning entry also can bring some big, green cash.

How much cash? Check these prices out:

—the Grand Champion Turkey, exhibited by Garrett See, was bought for $6,600.

—the Grand Champion Lamb, exhibited by Alyson Moore, was purchased for $7,000.

—the Grand Champion Steer, exhibited by Taylor Ridling, was bought for a whopping $24,000.

All of these pricey winning animals can be seen in the Exposition Center.

And the buyer in each case? Harris Teeter.

Two people were inducted into the N.C. State Fair Livestock
Hall of Fame on Sunday afternoon.

The two, honored for their support of State
Fair livestock shows, are Sheila Jordan of Laurel Springs and
Perry Teeter of Glade Valley.

If you spend all your time on the midway, riding the Avalanche and eating fried dough, it's possible to forget that this is an agricultural fair.

But most people manage to find their way to the various farm-related displays, booths and competitions that are the heart of the fair. Clyde Riggs, who was manning a display of antique farm machinery on Friday, says fairgoers are enlightened about the old days.

"It's really interesting to people who have never been on a farm, or know how hard they worked — they see where food comes from," said Riggs, 79, who grew up on a farm in Bahama. "I rode all that stuff when I was a kid."

Sometimes 100 people at a time roam the room looking at a welter of equipment including a 1930s-era Oliver Superior Grain Drill restored by Mark Williams and Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler.

"It would be ready to go to the field right now," Troxler said Friday.