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Arthur White Jr. has lived in this big old country
home since he was an infant. It is reminiscent of
White Says Farming Complicated
By Maxim- Thompson
“The hardest job I ever
had to do farming? Well, I’ll
have to go back and tell a
little story about that first.
When I was little farmers
had to mop cotton stalks with
a mixture of lead arsenic and
molasses - the moslasses
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Out to the fields again • after attaching equipment to his tractor, Arthur
White Jr. drives out of the farmyard.
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This is why yon have to be careful with
chemicals. Arthur White Jr. learned. Just a little
of a chemical used in the adjacent peanut field got
into the first few rows of corn • they were dwarfed,
was to make it stick -’’ Ar
thur White, Jr. paused, and
his eyes seemed to be looking
back into the past.
“A real mop, like the kind
you use on the kitchen floor
except smaller, was used.
They could be bought at the
store, or you could make one
an earlier era when farming was harder but less
complicated.
at home with rags on the end
of a stick. When you got
home from a day of mopping
cotton stalks with that
mixture and pulled off your
overalls they’d be so stiff
with molasses they’d stand
alone!
“Later a wheelbarrow
W u Ul amoUnt to an y th ‘ng- A hailstorm
shredded the lower leaves of the larger, healthy
SlalKS.
type outfit was made that
could be pushed between two
rows, and as you pushed,
arms coming out each side
rotated and dropped the
mixture on two rows of
stalks. I guess it was a real
improvement except for one
thing. It sure was hard to
push.
"My dad made a
singletree, hitched me up to
the front of the gadget with a
rope around me, and I pulled
while he pushed and guided
it. It did the trick, but it sure
was hard work. I was about
the age my boy is now, and
he’s II.”
Arthur thinks farming
isn't as hard as it was then,
but that it surely is much
more complicated. “All that
record keeping. I’m for
tuntate to have a wife with
bookkeeping and accounting
experience and she takes
care of that for me. It’s
necessary these days to have
to borrow so much money to
farm, and you have to keep a
financial statement up to
date at all times, besides all
the other records.”
He is a Farm Bureau
Director, State Director of
the Georgia Soybean
Association, and a Director
of Flint Electric Mem
bership, (’orp.
The White farm is located
nine miles north of Ferry on
the east side of U.S. Highway
41. Arthur and his family live
in the same house his father
moved into when Arthur was
three months old, a big,
gray, old-fashioned shaded
country home with a
ginger breaded front porch
complete with rockers, and
an irregular roof line in
cluding a teepee shape over
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At age 11 Ben White is dwarfted by the big grain
combine in his father’s wheat field, but he handles
part of the porch.
Arthur’s wife is the former
Margie Brooks of Perry and
they have four children, Ann,
Kathy, Susie, and Ben. All of
them have been active in 4-H
work and won ribbons in
local and state shows. The
girls showed cattle, but Ben
prefers pigs.
Like his father before him,
young Ben has respon
sibilities on the farm and
proudly drives the big grain
combine that dwarfs him.
There are no horses on the
farm except a pet owned by
Susie, so Ben rounds up cows
on a Honda.
Arthur spent 14 months in
the Navy, and when he
returned went into a farm
partnership with his father
which lasted until last year.
“At that time we were
using mostly mules, about 18
of them, with around eight
tenant families,” he
recalled. “We were running
one tractor. Soon after that
we got a 45 horsepower
tractor, and thought that was
a tremendous size tractor.
We planted about 400 acres
then, one or two rows at a
time. Now we plant six or
eight.”
Now one tenant family,
Arthur Jr. and young Ben
are farming about twice that
amount of land.
“Last year Margie hauled
most of the soybeans,”
Arthur laughed at his wife.
“And 1 had a ball doing it,”
she laughed right back.
“Talking with Mr. Zeke
Houser and some of the
others hauling was fun!.”
Mr. Houser is noted for his
witticisms and good humor
in Houston County.
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A farmer’s work is never done -a lot of work
goes into hitching up and adjusting all this modern
farm equipment, and some of it was responsible
PERRY, HOUSTON COUNTY, GEORGIA, 31069, THURSDAY, JULY 6, 1972
Arthur noted that tractor
horsepower on his farm has
doubled - he has a 90 hpj and
that there are much larger
ones.
“There’s more equipment
now, big differences in costs.
The old 45 hp Farmall M cost
$1,875. The 90 hp now costs
SIO,OOO to $12,000. That’s
i
Arthur White Jr. “just had to plow these peanuts to see the turned earth ”
despite the fact his county agent advised him it was no longer necessary.
it like a man.
where we go in partnership
with the bank!”
But certain other prices
are incongruous. “We were
getting $2.50 a bushel for
wheat back then - now we get
$1.35,” he said.
The White’s don’t find it
profitable any longer to raise
chickens. At one time thev
for the bandage on Arthur White Jr’s, forehead,
when a crowbar slipped.
thought they had to have a
bunch - after all, they lived
on a farm - but soon gave up
that idea.
“We can buy eggs, milk,
butter, and chickens so much
cheaper than we can raise
them!”
Records play a big part in
figuring farm costs. When