General News
31 January, 2026
Guest speaker reflects on century of farming
Guest speaker for the Hopertoun CWA Australia Day Ceremony, Austin Grace, relived memories of a farm boy of 14 years old, horse-drawn machinery, the changes in machinery, and the value of water on the land.
Australia Day is a day we can reflect, respect, and celebrate the deep connections to the land where we live, the people we meet, and the many challenges and milestones that make up our history.
As a 14-year-old and leaving school, I started farming with my father on his 1600-acre property at Turriff West, and have enjoyed a long and rewarding life, living in the Mallee that surrounds our farm, and small towns we call home.
It will be 100 years in March 2026 that my father, John McCarthy Grace, selected two 800-acre blocks at Turriff West, where three generations have continued to farm and where the original family home stands tall on “Carinya”.
Dad cleared many acres of timbered land with his horse team, rolling the Mallee scrub, utilizing the land for cropping and grazing.
Bulldozers and tractors were used when I cleared the remaining timber to reveal undulating sandy soils that required respect and appreciation of the delicate soils.
Methods of cropping and types of equipment have changed over the years from paddocks that were fallowed, then cropped in rotation, and a year of spelling to break down soil microbes.
Many days of drifting sands, fences that were buried under the drift, and horses blinded as they worked in the wind and cutting sand, resulting in the loss of much of the valuable topsoil and a much-needed change of farming practices.
Many farming districts have seen the advent of direct drilling, where crop stalks remain on the ground until worked in ahead of the next year's cropping, less soil workings, and improved and retained quality of the paddocks.
The light sandy soil proved a challenge for varieties of crops; wheat didn’t do so well, barley was the main crop, oats for hay and chaff cutting, and rye and velt grass helped keep cover on the sandy hilltops.
Pulses are also grown now, bringing variety and the bonus of putting nitrogen back into the ground for the following season.
Grazing our merino sheep for many years contributed to compacted ground, and hilltops saw damage by soil drifting.
Cattle now graze on the farm, who leave a softer footprint on the delicate soils of the Mallee.
Our tractors varied from horse drawn machinery, kerosine Fordson, a Chamberlain and 40 years with our Mercedes Benz, a great tractor that eventually would be sold to a German collector, wanting to take it back to Germany.
Today, Michael has a Caterpillar tractor and an air seeder.
In retirement, as a hobby and many relics of Mallee history, I have a noisy Bulldog which some neighbours used, and I use now to sow my Hopetoun paddocks.
Our transport from horse and cart to cars and trains has changed immensely.
From the farm on dewy mornings, we could hear the Hopetoun to Patchewollock and the Mildura to Melbourne trains blowing their whistles over many miles of farmland.
Cars included Erskine (American car), Zepha’s, Falcon and Holdens.
The drifting sands of the Mallee saw many a fully laden train from Patchewollock unable to get back to Hopetoun until the train tracks were cleared of sand. Derailments also occurred until the line was finally closed in the 1980s.
In 1977, we celebrated our success with soil conservation over many years, winning the prestigious Harold Hanslow Cup for the Mallee.
Soil was always at the forefront of our farming, cropping and grazing decisions.
The Hanslow Cup was a significant part of the Soil Conservation Authorities’ work to battle soil drift in the Mallee, initiated in the 1940’s, due to severe erosion.
Water was a luxury with only springs on the farm that would seep through the sand and pool to a lower spot. In the 1860’s The Wimmera Mallee channel system began when pioneers attempted to harvest water from rivers and creeks.
This resulted in establishing a water supply system that would eventually bring water to the Wimmera Mallee through a channel system of some 17,500 kilometers, including some 20,000 farm dams.
Unfortunately, some 85% of this water was lost with evaporation and seepage.
Our farm was a mile away from the Denning Channel, from which we pumped water for some three weeks each year, providing valued water for stock and the house.
The channels were deep and, being in sandy soil, often filled with drifting soil, which required cleaning while water was running and ongoing maintenance.
Dad spent six months a year working on clearing many miles of channels for the State Rivers SR-WSC for 16 years, using his horse team and scoop.
He was the last horse-drawn team used up to 1957, by which time ditchers had been implemented for the job.
In time, we would see the development of massive water savings bringing water through both the Grampians and the Murray Pipeline Systems to the Mallee, completed in 2010 and 2016.
Our retirement to Hopetoun in 2000 has been an interesting journey, meeting Hopetoun and district residents, being part of a wider community, sharing skills, learning from others, developing and helping to enhance and beautify the town and its environment.
My retirement only lasted six weeks, and I was out looking for a job.
I worked with the Shire for eight years, then enjoyed a six-year role in maintenance at the Hopetoun Hospital.
I enjoyed both these roles immensely, and many lasting friendships have developed.
The Mallee has been a great place to live. It continues to provide us with communities that support one another, gives us opportunities to grow and expand, and ways and means to overcome the diversity of the land and the seasons.
Through the many challenges that this country shares with us, be they drifting sands, bush fires that continue for weeks, droughts and floods that surprise us, mice, rabbits, kangaroos, or grasshoppers that test our farming produce, we have made our own choices, and it is still the best place to live.