Lindsay & Ollie White & Families
A wet day in East Doncaster. Lindsay White, age 11, with a sack on his head, rubber
boots on his feet and skipper the dog for company. He has just walked 2 km to the general store for the newspaper and mail and is preparing to do the return trip.
Lindsay was well known for his orchard innovations, here he is (extreme right) with father, Ollie (second from left) being interviewed on their orchard forT.V. in the late 1950’s.
Lindsay White catching yabbies in the dam at Donvale. The dog knows there is meat on the end of that line and is most interested. January 1940.
This cartoon arrived in Ollie White’s letter box several days after the fateful ‘Market Day’. How did the artist find out about the problems of this particular market day? There were no telephones in Donvale homes at the time but the bush telegraph was alive and well!
RECOLLECTIONS BY LINDSAY WHITE:
My name is Lindsay Gordon White, youngest child of Oliver and Rose White. I was born 20/4/27. I was brought up on an orchard in Springvale Road, Donvale, along with my two older brothers and sister.
We grew cherries, peaches, plums, pears and apples. The fruit was sold in the Queen Victoria fresh fruit market, Melbourne. We had a 1927 Chevrolet Truck that served us faithfully for 20 years. Transporting fruit to market, shopping, church
school picnics and all outings. We had three Clydesdale horses which were used for pulling the ploughs, carts, sprayer etc., plus a house cow for the supply of milk, cream and butter.
Pigs were also kept so they could eat the reject fruit and drink surplus skim milk.
Our nearest livestock market was Croydon where Dad would often go to buy a couple of sucker pigs. It was no trouble to put them in the pig sty but after several weeks of milk and reject fruit they grew quite large - moving them was a different story.
MARKET DAY
I remember one market day, our neighbours had some roosters to sell, "could you please take them to market ?". The roosters were put into the fruit cases in the back of the Chev. Truck. Now to get the pigs. Dad went to the pig sty armed with a chaff bag, (a large hessian bag). The idea was you snared the pig in the bag, tied the end of the bag and then everyone helped to carry the pig to the truck.
Well, on this day, not all went to plan. Pig 1 went straight through the bag, tearing the bottom out with its front trotters. Another bag. Pig 2, well caught and carried to the truck and let out of the bag. Now for Pig 1 again. Not so easy to get him in bag, after having tricked him once. Took some time. Success at last, open tail gate to put pig in truck, out comes the roosters, Pig 2 had broken the cases and released the roosters into an environment they were not familiar with. The dogs joined in to help. What a day !
Video Extract from Doncaster Orchard for Sale ABCTV 02-04-1959
Fruit tree orchard spraying machine with fan. Almost certainly Lindsay White:
RECOLLECTIONS BY LINDSAY WHITE:
When tractors took over from the horse around 1950, the shafts were removed and a single tow bar to the tractor added and operated by one man using a 120 ft hose with a double nozzle. We had 52 acres of orchard and it took two weeks to spray the property using this method.
Next was a three cylinder, high pressure pump 20 gallons per minute @ 600 P.S.I.. P.T.O. drive from the tractor with a 300 gallon cylinder shaped wooden vat. A platform on the back where two men each held a three or four head boom and drove past while directing the spray to the trees. This method was costly with manpower. We then mounted an eight nozzle boom on one side of the outfit dispensed with two men and drove past with the boom set. This was very costly with spray material.
In 1954, we purchased an airblast sprayer driven by a Holden motor with a similar, 3 cylinder high pressure pump used at 400psi with the assistance of a 28 inch fan creating 33,000 cubic ft of air per minute or approx. 110 M.P.H. wind directed behind the nozzles creating a misting effect being double sided it used about the same amount of spray material as the single sided high pressure sprayer. So from 1950, taking 2 weeks to spray the orchard, by 1954 it took 18 hours to achieve a complete spray and was a more efficient job.
Extracts from "Fruits of the Orchard - The Family of Henry White and Elizabeth Raney" https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1320774
White Family Pear Harvest
Video Extract from Doncaster Orchard for Sale ABCTV 02-04-1959
April 1959. 90 Old Warrandyte Road Donvale Vic 3111 Fruit tree orchard picking. Lindsay White's extended family picking the pear harvest. Men, woman, children, baby, dogs. Tea break. (Ollie White seated with back to camera). Tractor driven by Lin White c child. Manual tree picking pears. Voices.
Oliver White picking pears into bag. (LG White on bags). Male & female (Lin's wife's sister ?) tipping pears into trailer. Tractor returning pear trailer to shed (still exiting in 2018 at back of property). Stacking pear pallets.
90 Old Warrandyte Rd Oorchard was about 60 acres, and they sold out after the hail storms in the early 1960s. The 1962 fires came to the back of the property down by Mullum Ck.
Info from: Robert Latimer, Lorraine Rose. Facebook 2018
90 Old Warrandyte Road Donvale Vic 3111
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