The Spelt Project 1, July 2014 | Page 27

MINUS THE LATEST GIZMOS At Yanget in May, a more modest cropping experience was underway. Yanget itself was originally developed as a pastoral property, and the undulating land and oddly shaped paddocks don’t lend themselves to textbook cropping techniques. This is the type of farming where capital is scarce, the equipment is mostly old and cobbled together, there are never enough hands, and you give and receive a lot of help from your farming mates. While we couldn’t claim the fanciest equipment, the soil was a revelation. When it rained and the plough discs dug into the earth it was easy to see why in 1849 Mr Thomas Brown, riding up from York with a party, chose to occupy 40,000 acres in this neck of the woods. 25 The culti-trash and the Mahindra tractor at Yanget