Written by John S Lamont (b.1939)
Part One
THE EARLY DAYS 1909 to 1917
Sometime in 1909 or earlier, John Duncan [Jack] Lamont came up to this part of New South Wales looking for farming land, no doubt encouraged by George Hutchings who was on a similar mission. The Hutchings family were great friends with the Sinclair and Lamont families in the Wimmera. Hutchings purchased land, part of the Grubben Estate at Yerong Creek in August 1909. Dock later said that Jack looked at land a bit north of Mangoplah but he liked ‘Kooringal’ as it had the biggest and best trees on it.
We know that Jack then had a clearing sale at Rupanyup on February 10th 1910 where “The whole of his Superior Draught Horses, Stock, Machinery, Farming Implements, Superior Household Furniture and, &c., WITHOUT THE SLIGHEST RESERVE” were offered for sale.
The Harefield Estate was advertised for auction in October 1909 by Mr J Howard Izon. It consisted of 5,034 acres in nine farms. On 30th October, the Wagga Advertiser notes all blocks passed in, the homestead block of 1159 acres for £6/10- per acre. We can only presume it was purchased privately after the auction.
The early part of 1910 must have seen the move to Harefield and during the year the Kooringal homestead was possibly started as they moved in during March 1911. I think they lived in a small cottage on the place in the meantime and Dock said the staff lived in a tent. No doubt the first job was to build stables and yards for the horses and get the first year’s farming program under way. Jack must have had a fair bit of crop in as sold at least 2000 bags of wheat in 1911 and would have cut a lot for hay as well. During these early days Eric Sinclair was working at ‘Kooringal’ until the war started in 1914.
Jack seemed to be a very busy man as every day except Sunday, there seemed to be plenty happening. If you wanted fresh vegetables you had to have a garden and Jack seems to have been a particularly keen gardener. The orchard was established in March 1911 after he arrived home from a trip to Melbourne and the Wimmera. One notable event in 1911 was snow at ‘Kooringal’ in June (the hills to the east white till dinner time).
Jack spent a lot of time researching “engines” and “tractors” and eventually after a trip to Cowra for a demonstration he settled for a 25 hp McDonald Imperial Oil Engine which arrived in September. The same month saw the arrival of Jean Eliza Lamont on the 21st , their second child and only daughter. The year must have been good as harvest saw crops yielding 7 to 8 bags acre (about 1.5 t/ha) but a lot of rain delays. It is interesting to note Jack and Eric both worked on Christmas Day. Yields were back by half by then due to rain and hail however prices were over 5/- bushel so they really had a good return.
At the beginning of 1912, Kooringal was valued at eight pounds acre and Jack mortgaged the property and took out a £1,200 loan @ 4.5%. I think he must have been thinking of moving as ‘Kooringal’ was on the market in March as well. Also of note in 1912, Jack joined the Wagga Amateur Picnic Race Club on June 30th.
Travelling seemed no great problem as Jack had a couple of weeks in the Wimmera and then the family had three weeks in Sydney for the show. The machinery shed was also built this year and all was well until Jack became very ill in September.
He had been working in the smithy with his brother, Andrew, who was staying and Jack caught a chill. Blacksmithing was his favourite hobby, just like a modern day farmer who spends lots of time in the workshop welding and making things. Dock was also like that but it certainly has not been carried through to me. I think Jack must have nearly died and the doctors in Wagga did not know what the matter was. He had an operation in Wagga and then no real improvement so they went off to Melbourne and an X ray revealed a hydatid cyst. After another operation he eventually returned home at the end of December. It must have knocked him about as in March 1913 he only weighed 56 kg when he had a check up with his doctor in Melbourne, before a trip to the Wimmera and then to the Sydney show.
The drama for 1913 was a sickness that went through the stable. Four draught horses died and reading the diary entries I guess it was a form of equine influenza. It would have been a very worrying time especially as a good horse was worth over thirty pounds. The year was again quite good and there seemed to be a good harvest but the price of wheat fell back to about 3/- bushel.
The great drought year of 1914 started off quite normally with good opening rain of 63 mm at the end of March but that was it. Growing season rain of only 65 mm with 25 mm in late November and December. The wheat yields were about 300 kg/ha. Diary entry of November 27th: ‘Share men gave up harvesting. Moss got 24 bags, Schultz 15 and Brown 11’.and for December 9th : ‘On the last piece with machine, very poor only going about 2 bushells, 11 bags for a day’s work.’
In 1915, Jack started the new year with a clearing sale which yielded £771. He had the neighbours well organised running the prices up!
As the year progressed and the drought took its hold, water became the big worry. All those thirsty horses! Jack purchased a boring plant from Sydney in April and then as the following diary entries show, there was all the drama of water divining, drilling in rock and losing tools down the hole. 29/6: ‘Bore fell in 12 feet from bottom, put casing down close to bottom’
2/7: ‘lost pump at bottom of bore’ 4/7: ‘Lifted casing a foot and tried for pump again, no good, sent to Sydney for grappling irons.’ 13/7: ‘Got pump up, had to take casing up, put casing down again.’ 15/7: ‘Cable broke and left tools at bottom of bore 157 foot down’. They struck water six days after the First World War started. Good supply of fresh water at 201 feet. The boring plant then went to a neighbour, McKinnon.
August saw Eric leave to run the Sinclair farm at Lubeck when his two older brothers, Will and Colin, enlisted. Eric enlisted in March 1916. The telephone was connected, wheat up to 4/8d bushel and to finish the month ‘the brown cow strayed away’. As in other years clearing was taking place. Aug 28th diary states: ‘clearing over the creek next to the Junee Road’.
In September, the ‘Food Commission’ set the price of wheat at 4/2 bushel. It was previously up to 5/6 bushell.
The first mention of shearing sheep was in October. ‘Commenced shearing in the stable, only 100 left to do’. I have an idea that sheep did not play a big part on ‘Kooringal’ under Jack’s management. At least they did not have to work this Christmas. ‘Quiet Xmas, good sample of weather, cool in morning, then hot winds, dust storm and thunder storm, seven points’.
The last year of Jack’s diaries, 1915, saw the severe drought conditions continue until the end of April. They then had 15 inches of growing season rain which resulted in a good harvest of 7/8 bags per acre. Jack had a trip to Sydney in January trying to sell chaff and came home via Cowra where he stayed with his eldest brother, Hector, for a few days. The dust storms must have been terrible. On the way back from Cowra on the 19th January his diary says: ‘Left Cowra, met dust storm at Young. Could not see anyone in compartment of carriage’ and on 31st : ‘Bad dust storm at 6 am, too dusty for church, no one turned up.’ This dusty month saw the arrival of Colin William on the 29th February. The telephone was also connected which must have been a great help as chaff selling seemed to be a major activity. The price of chaff was up to £9/15 per ton, the highest since 1888.
During the winter, pulling down green timber continued using a contractor with a steam engine and clearing 64 acres in 2 ½ days. A fencing program was also under way.
On reading the diary for 1915, everything seemed to be back to normal, good crops, three good share farmers and excellent prices but the cloud of war hung over the nation.
Unfortunately we have no records for 1916 but it must have been a good year as Wagga recorded an annual rainfall of 790 mm. All must have been looking well until that fateful day in November when Jack fell from his horse and broke his neck. It was on the 24th November at
2.30 pm.
The events are recorded in a letter Ina wrote to her brother Col on January 17th. It is a very interesting and revealing letter and is included as an appendix at the end of this part of the story. [Appendix One]
1917 must have been one non-stop event for Ina as she organised sharefarmers and contactors to get the farming done. It was another wet year with rainfall of 725 mm. March and April appeared not too wet and ideal for getting the crop in. There were also the everyday tasks of looking after her young family and running the house, the garden and the orchard.
Selling the big crop from 1916 plus attending to business matters, seeing solicitors about the will etc. would appear to have left Ina no spare time, but she was also involved with Red Cross activities, campaigning to get a school at Harefield and other charitable things like ‘making cakes for War Chest’.
After the wet year in 1916 with its big harvest, came a mouse plague in February. Hundreds of bags of wheat were still in the paddocks and with the wet summer and then the mice, the bottoms rotted out. The bags all had to be turned upside down onto timber rails and patched. Harvest did not finish until March 1st.
Ina was fortunate to have had a lot of family to support her, particularly Hector and Arch. Col arrived back from France on July 5th. The stalwart of the operation however, seems to have been Dave Beresford who had left sometime earlier but appears to have returned with his wife, Mary, when Jack was killed. The Beresfords originally came up with Jack in 1910.
When we look at farming one hundred years ago it seems to have been pretty hard work.
Early rising to get the horses fed and milking done before returning to the house for breakfast. Then the day really started. The teams were harnessed and taken out to the machines in the paddocks. Dock used to talk about fallowing in July and breaking the ice off the chains to get the teams harnessed up. Then off to work, oh so slow, no trouble counting the rounds done each day. I can only suppose they thought things were so much better than they were a hundred years before, as indeed they were.
With these few notes I have written plus the diaries we have quite an accurate record of the early years of the family at ‘Kooringal’ and despite the missing diaries we are indeed fortunate to have this much information. Part Two of the story, covering 1918 to 1928, is certainly not so enlightening.
