Stories of the Bremer River and Wellstead Estuary: Farming in early days

Farming
in early days

"It is a great achievement to develop a farm of 2500 acres from mallee into a fully-fenced working farm"

The farming practices of the original Wellstead's relied heavily on the regeneration capabilities of the natural bush. The bush was grazed and then burnt to promote natural regeneration for stock to feed on. The Wellstead's had homesteads at Quallup, Fitzgerald and Quallinup and grazed the stock between the three locations.

In 1872 a shearing shed was built at Peppermint Grove and sheep were shawn using blades. Later when the small, sea-bearing vessels were permitted to off-load products 10,000 sheep were shorn in 1882 for 33 bales of wool. Blades were used until the shearing shed was upgraded in 1915.

During the earlier years of Max's farming career he recalls that the sheep had to be drenched for cobalt and copper deficiencies every three months. In between this there was fencing construction and maintenance to be done. The first rye and clover pastures were grown in 1948 and by 1955 there was 600 acres of pasture to fatten grazing stock. Burning was restricted in the 1950's and it became necessary to grow pasture.

Cropping yielded only coarse grains and was generally done as a means to re-clear and tidy-up the land. Max recalls that because the barley crops were planted too early they became stained so it was used as feed for the stock. Like many landholders, Max feels that "it is a great achievement to develop a farm of 2500 acres from mallee into a fully-fenced, working farm".

Athol recalls the early years of farming in the catchment and says that the war service settlement land had some good years and the landholders could run four to five sheep an acre. When the dry years hit, however, Athol recalls that "they battled to sell their stock". Wind erosion also occurred, but it was worse towards Gairdner.

John says that farming has changed a lot from the early days. "The margins have tightened right up to what it was". They started off putting in 400 acres of crop and now like most landholders, up to two thirds of the arable land is put into crop to chase the commodity. John also recalls that in the upper reaches of the catchment, the war service land was cleared up to and sometimes over the river, the landholders "had to clear so much of it all the time".

The area was a "closely settled farming community from the sixties on" Alice recalls and there were many big families. Farming was very rewarding and people expected more rainfall with frequent flooding in February and spring.