Newspaper Page Text
-Griffin Daily News Thursday, Sepfember 12,1974
Page 6
Midwest drought’s effects
No rain, no profits, no nothing
By Cathy Booth
LAWTON, Okla. - (NEA)
— Oliver Pine looked up
from the rusty valve he was
working on. His eyes nar
rowed and he stared at the
few patches of grass and
knee-high milkweeds in the
field. Small streams of weed
killer trickled onto the red
Oklahoma dirt. The metal
cap on the tractor’s exhaust
pipe clapped unceasingly.
In nearby Lawton, the
lawns were green and neatly
trimmed. But out at Pine s
800-acre farm, they were
having a drought. Not like
the drought of the Dust Bowl
days when the red sands
smothered crops, but a killer
drought nevertheless. “I was
farming during the drought
of the Thirties,” says Pine,
“but droughts hurt more
now.
“Prices for fertilizer, bal
ing wire and farm equipment
have soared. Taxes and in
terest rates are high. Then
along comes a drought like
this year’s. You don t know
it’s here until it’s here.
“It hurts. My alfalfa crop
was completely killed, The
wheat around here is usually
shoulderhigh. It’s knee-high
A DREAM PLACE
A Most beautiful home of English Tudor design on 24 open
and wooded acres. Four bedrooms, Grecian master bath
that must be seen to be believed, plus 2 other full baths,
and two half baths, kitchen with all built-ins, cathedral
den with exposed beams. Living room-dining room
combination, beautiful carpet throughout. Custom made
drapes. Every other extra imaginable. Owner will
finance $50,000 on a second mortgage at 8 percent interest
for ten years. $120,000
TOM BARRETT REALTY
Phone 228-2706
JANICE HUFF 228-5753
I COOKS SJ
■IS FOR THE PEOPLE
UP TO 50% OFF *"A™
| CLEARANCE SALE
Sale Starts Thursday Till ??
I Mansion Shelf Paper 3 rolls 1.00 EXTRA SPECIALS |
| Laundry Carts r«s.s.«? 3.00 Magnolia Toilet Seats « 3.89
I Jester 5 pc. Mug Tree Reg ’ 4 67 2.50 Swag Lamps values to 24.00 Each only 10.00 I
Numbers 7028-9617-7935-77144661
■Comic Candles 1.00 Candle Craft Molds ■<« >« 1.25
| Turkey Carving Board R * 9 - 97 5.00 Rust Preventive Paint % Pt. Reg. .74c 25*
| Baking Pans Re « 139 79* Laundry Carts oni y 4.oo|
| Football Helmets Reg - 638 2.50 Exercise Wheels Reg. 9.89 5.00 |
| Football Helmets 1.50 Wall Clocks Reg. 12.89 8.00 |
| Football Helmets Reg< 9,92 3.50 Flair Markers Black oni y , Reg. 37c 20* |
| Volley Ball, Badminton Reg. 7.97 4.00 Basket Weave Curtains ™ 1.52 |
| Special Group Os FOShCC Horse ShOBS 379 2.54 |
| 6 01 * >ron$ 50% off styrofoam Coolers l.33 |
| Many More Clearance Items To Choose From |
See Our Display Os
Panasonic, Juliette and General Electric Radios
30% Our Low Price
INoßaincheckt Pleasel
I USE OURjCONVENIENT LAY-AWAY PLAN PHONE 228-0473 |
|£2
1 At a9s#ll,el > n ® OPEN DAILY 10 A.M. TO 10 P.M. - SUNDAY 1 P.M. TO 6 P.M. —.J “aX .LXJtL ?
I Increase in price .••ittntT«taiMTr(UMiT.»MTiTn> H
this year and fifty per cent of
it died. In a good year, I av
erage a thirty-bushel (per
acre) yield on wheat. This
year I’ll get fifteen or twenty
bushels, says Pine.
“My pasture is thirty per
cent shorter so I had to sell
half of my cattle and that’s
just the beginning. The cattle
I sold went for less than thir
ty cents a pound. That’s
about half of what I put into
them.
“This year’s drought has
set me back about $20,000.
My neighbors have the same
problem. So we talk and we
gripe and we look for better
methods of farming and we
dig into our savings. And
since that’s not enough, we
hold down other jobs. I'm a
retired civil service em
ploye. There are very few
farmers that don’t supple
ment their incomes,” he says.
This is Roger Snider’s first
drought. Eight years ago he
bought his farm near Clinton
to put his college education
to use. At Clinton’s grain
elevator, he talked about the
dry spell. “The grass for my
cattle was burnt up in July
by the drought. So instead of
the 350 head of cattle I
usually buy, I got only 150.
Feeding even those is expen
sive. My feed is up forty per
cent over last year and hay is
double. Then because of the
drought, I didn’t plant hay’
for winter so I’ll have to buy
it this winter. I figure the
drought has set me back
$6,000 on my cattle business
alone,” says Snider.
“I guess I’ll survive, but
talk to me in mid-October. If
it don’t rain in the next cou
ple of weeks, we won’t plant
wheat. That will kill me. I
talk to my banker a lot these
days.”
W.C. Pesterfield, 35, of
Pauls Valley, raises wheat,
alfalfa, soybeans, grain
sorghum and steers on his
700-acre farm interrupted
only by plots reserved for oil
tanks. The drought means a
loss of almost $17,000.
Food on his family’s table
won’t suffer. They feed their
own beef and raise their own
fruits and vegetables — but
those extra things will have
to wait. “We just get a little
tighter on clothing in a
drought year,” says Pester
field. “Farm machinery and
household appliances have to
make do for another year
and we keep the car for an
other year.
“It’s pretty bad this year.
In a normal year I yield forty
bushels of wheat. This year
Crew abandons burning liner;
no passengers were aboard
HE’LL STAY DRESSED
OMAHA, Neb. (UPI) -
Daniel Krzemien pledged to
keep his pants on Thursday
after a jury found him innocent
of indecent exposure charges
stemming from a streaking
incident during the final game
of last June’s College Baseball
World Series.
“Tell them I’ll keep ‘em up
and buckled from now on,” he
said.
I’ll get fifteen. That’s a
SIO,OOO loss right there. My
alfalfa is forty per cent off of
last year so that’s another
$7,000.
“Sure, I’ll recoup some of
that loss. My soybeans are
good. My grain sorghum is
probably my best ever. But
I’ll have to double-crop, go
back and replant this year.
With soybeans and milo I
may regain $3,000 or $4,000
but the rest puts me in a bind.
“To get by, most of us get
winter jobs to make our way.
The average farmer has a
debt of $25,000 to $30,000 on
machinery alone. Then there
are debts on the land and
taxes and interest rates. To
plant a crop, a lot of us bor
row $25,000 for operating
funds — money to buy seed,
fertilizer and extra labor.
“It’s hard to stay in busi
ness now,” says Pesterfield,
“but I think there still is a
place for the family farm to
day as long as the farmer is
innovative, shrewd and man
agement-minded.”
But sometimes sheer
longevity helps in a drought
year. Fred A. Chapman, an
85 year old farmer, who man
ages 30,000 acres in
Ardmore, saw this year’s
drought coming. “I farmed
through the droughts of 1918,
1933 and the Fifties. They
come on you like a big fire.
KEY WEST, Fla. (UPI) -
Fire broke out today aboard the
luxury oceanliner Cunard Am
bassador, cruising 39 miles
southwest of Key West, and the
290 crewmembers fled over the
side in lifeboats.
There were no passengers
aboard.
A Coast Guard spokesman
said crewmen “are abandoning
ship into their lifeboats with the
exception of a firefighting
party.”
He said two ships in the area
Bang! They hit you and over
night your ranch is gone.
“It was awfully dry last
year. One young fella I know
— married the girl across
the street — started out
ranching just five years ago.
Had almost 700 head of cattle
last year and he was doing
awfully good. But that dry
weather was a deadly blow.
He lost a big end of it,” says
Chapman.
Tne Chapman clan meets
each Sunday in Ardmore at
the home of the elder Chap
man, a former state senator,
to discuss the ranching busi
ness admidst Oriental rugs
and shelves of books. “I kept
pounding at them last year to
watch out for the drought.
‘We better head for cover,’ I
said. I told them to sell off
their old cows.
“Well, I ended up selling
more cattle than my sons.
I’ve been through several
droughts myself, you know,
and I wasn’t ready to suffer a
loss on another one. The
Thirties like to have ruined
me," says Chapman almost
grinning at nature’s
capriciousness.
A Yeh, these droughts can
sure catch you. A guy will do
real good, build himself a
swell home and get to
drinkin’ heavy, then along
comes a drought and they're
in a hell of a shape, a hell of a
shape .... “
were expected to pick up the
crewmembers. They are the
USNA Tallulah and the steam
ship California. Three Coast
Guard cutters also were en
route.
The 486-foot liner was on its
way from Port Everglades at
Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to New
Orleans where it was to pick up
passengers for a new cruise
Agents seize heroin
ATLANTA (UPI)-Heroin es
timated to be worth almost $2
million was seized Wednesdays
night b y agents of the Georgia
Bureau of Investigation in the
second major haul within a
week.
The GBI said William Larry
Woods, 26, of Atlanta was ar
rested in connection with the
confiscation of two pounds of al
most pure heroin at an apart
ment.
GBI Director Bill Beardsle y
said the heroin seizure was the
biggest in at least five y ears.
Atlanta police had confiscated
almost |1.5 million worth of the
drug last weekend.
■ u n
CA/ft CAJI CAA S.zeH7B-15 SizeL7B-15 ft
I *3O *34 *39 *4l *42 *45 *49 I
Whitewall plus Whitewall plus Whitewall plus Whitewall plus Whitewall nine ■
SI.BO F.E.T. and $2.25 F.E.T. and $2.50 F.E.T. and $2.67 F.E.T and $2 74 FE l and plus Whitewall plus
tire off your car. tire off your car. tire off your car. tire off your car. tire off vour rar J 297 F E -T. and F.E.T. and I
■» - L OTT your car tire off your car. tire off your car. K
——■■■■ll ■■ ■—lH_ | |
GOOD-YEAR
HILL'S TIRE STORE
° m ° n & 6th St - Phone 228-1347 I
WKj v jaffs
\ JWK®-
when the blaze started in the
engine room.
The ship’s captain radioed
the Coast Guard and said the
crew had tried to control the
fire but was unsuccessful.
“We don’t know how exten
sive the fire is, but it must be
serious if they tried to put it
out and couldn’t,” a Coast
Guard spokesman said.
Beardsley said most of the
heroin confiscated by authorities
now is coming from South
America. He said he hoped it
would not turn into a serious
problem because the state had
reduced hard drug distribution
to cocaine until last March
when new heroin began appear
ing.
WANT A REAL
BLESSING?
IT’S WORTH THE DISTANCE
IF I TOLD YOU THAT NOW
IS THE TIME TO BUY A
HOME, YOU'D PROBABLY
SAY "MANI YOU'RE
' CRAZY"
BUT SEE WHO
IS REALLY CRAZY.
A bom, Hill tbr bat tavatmetn > mlOdl, tarom, man cai
I lw 11 “*»• '““f b«yn rt,
■ pmrhMed a home la yean ago lor 125.0 Mbu a bom,
worth ,wr tr.SM U kept lb rraaooably good eoodhloc Hr
S' ■ kM Ux-reaard the vita, ol hla tavatmenl by JU.JW Yoo
made a mlataka It year, don’t make one today
I «*•“»* *>• 1 "'H ’•« ■ “““ b*er«t ratea wme
down." Watttag lor home tatami rata to come down will
)wl coat you more money. Even lllmemt ratal go down, yoo
will pay more lor the home yoo waited tor. The coat ol bomr
conatructtan baa gone up more than It percent per year over
‘ ■ U* tan aeveral yean and all Indication are that It win
- h . continue to ria,. A bane coating HO.MO today would require
monthly irtaclpal-lmemt payment, <d *122 at I percent For
■ >'■ ” kttemt rate were droped to 14 percent taw
year tram now By then the houae would con Him ill
percent tacreaae In rouatmctlon eoat). The monthly
I'"' peyraeaU would be R3>. Von would bare loot 111 a mtntta
h* ■ tau» HMO Increaae value ta your bouae by waiting.
NOW I ASK YOU "WHO'S
CRAZY, MANII"
HEDGE AGAINST INFLATION NOW.
• JU
515 E. Taylor Street Griffin, Georgia
_ 227 2283 227-5307