From farms to Lardner

There is nothing new in the idea of ‘field days’, though the Farm World version has come up with new and exciting aspects out at Lardner. It now attracts international attention.

With dairying, like most primary industries, going through some tough times it is important that farmers exchange ideas and seek new ones if they are to succeed.

A few weeks ago I was given some information on the Victorian United Cow Testing Association, which conducted a field day at Yinnar in 1929. This initiative has grown and is now a regular part of the farmers’ calendar.

The senior dairy supervisor at the Department of Agriculture was W.J.Yuill and he seems to have been one of the prime movers of the herd-testing system. There were herd-testing associations throughout Gippsland by 1920 or so, but they were fairly localised, with little exchange of information and ideas between them.

In those years there were few ‘extension services’ and nothing at all like the range of courses and training now offered by the Victorian College of Agriculture and Horticulture at Warragul through the MacMillan Rural Studies Centre, taken into the combine in 1977. Farmers learned their craft from their fathers or neighbours, or through long and sometimes bitter experience.

There were agricultural secondary schools set up to teach farming courses, but these were rarely of much value. Warragul High School opened in 1911 on a farm site south of Warragul as an agricultural high school.

Leongatha Agricultural High School opened in 1912 with a small farm in its grounds. An orchard was planted, crops were grown and pigs and cattle were bred. At Leongatha the agricultural course could not attract any students after 1917 and was formally abandoned in 1930. It seems that the influx of soldier settlers, many of them unskilled in farming, would have ensured the enrolment, but not so.

Sale Agricultural High School opened in 1907 with a school farm. The farm was a failure, though it survived until 1928.

Farmers seemed to prefer educating themselves and visits to other farms to see what was being done were one way of doing it. The herd-testing associations, groups of farmers with a keen interest in developing their herds, led the way. They formed local associations, the first at Yinnar in 1921.

In 1922 a conference held at Stony Creek, of all places, led to the formation of the Gippsland United Herd Testing Association, with representatives from herd-testing associations at Yinnar, Mirboo-Dumbalk North, Toora-Welshpool and Stony Creek.

In 1925 the Gippsland United Herd Testing

Association became the United Victorian Cow Testing Association, a force which did a great deal to educate farmers and help develop better herds. VUCTA conducted its first “field day” at Yinnar in 1929, followed by one at Tongala in 1930, at Alexandra in 1931 and at Eurack in 1932 . In 1933 it was back in Gippsland, at Dumbalk and Dumbalk North.

A trophy called the Commonwealth Fertiliser Company Challenge Shield was awarded to the best VUCTA zone every year and this was won by South Gippsland in 1932. The same zone was runner-up in 1930 and 1933. Two of the winning farms were J. Moore and Co’s “Toonalook” at Yarram and H. Biesterfeldt’s farm at Ruby

The 1933 VUCTA Field Day itinerary included visits to the Hamilton brothers’ farm at Dumbalk North and the farms of M. Considine and J. Pearson at Dumbalk. It was a punishing program, given the standard of the roads at the time. The cars left Melbourne at 8am and followed the highway to Trafalgar and then went up through Thorpdale to Mirboo North, where they were met by local people for a briefing on the area.

The morning visit was to the farm of J. Trease at Dumbalk North. Trease was experimenting with the the introduction of Jersey blood into what had been largely an Ayrshire-cross herd. He had increased his butterfat output by about 30 per cent per cow over ten years. He was also raising large white pigs crossed with middle whites and making very good money from them. (I have no idea what a large or middle white pig was, other than assuming they were of a porcine shape). This was what the field days were all about, looking at the results of what other farmers were trying and deciding which ideas were worth pursuing and which were not.

At 12.15pm the visitors were welcomed by the president of the Woorayl Shire, Cr G.M. Black, and by Mr M. Considine of the Herd Testing Associations. This was the Dumbalk North Hall where the local ladies then served lunch. No time was wasted over this because by 1.15 everyone was due at the Hamiltons’ farm. Here they looked at another Ayrshire herd being switched over to Jersey bloodlines and saw the pastures planted down by the Department of Agriculture for the Pasture Improvement League. The butterfat average on this farm had risen 233 lbs to 326 lbs in only eight years.

At 2pm the party moved to H. Furphy’s farm to see the effects of planned shelter belts and, again, the improvement in the herd when scientific breeding was introduced. Most of the herds at the time were founded on “scrub bulls” when the farmers had no money for good bulls but they were improving as the farms were earning enough for the purchasing stud stock.

Matt Considine’s farm was next and this was interesting because the farm was only 12 years old and Considine had no previous farming experience. In 1922 his cows had averaged 192 lbs of butterfat but in just one year this had risen to 256 lbs.

The final visit was to J. Pearson’s Dumbalk farm. This had been rejected by the Soldier Settlement Board as being too ‘dirty’ and yet Pearson won the Commonwealth Fertiliser Company’s Shield for Zone 9 in 1932.

Again, the herd was built on Jersey blood – it was the home of the Warrawee stud – but particular care had been taken with pasture preparation, using potato, maize and oat crops for three years before planting down with cocksfoot, rye and clovers.

Pigs were bred on the farm and their manure was liquified and spread on the pastures. Pearson was also making ensilage (silage) and was one of the first farmers in the district to experiment with it.

The party then went back to the hall for afternoon tea at 4.15pm. It was a very full day.

Today’s Gippslanders might smile at the ideas being discussed on those Dumbalk farms in 1933 – pasture development, silage, improved production from careful breeding, shelter belts, etc. These are now seen as very basic things, just as the things farmers explore today will one day be seen as very basic. The important thing was the sharing of ideas, which is still crucial today.

(This story was first written in the mid-1980s. Much has happened since then!)