Extracts from a talk by Les Boyes in 2002
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It was in about 1850 that two men in the Boyes family heard stories about the gold in South Africa and Australia.
John, 21, and Thomas, 18, set off to make their fortunes on the goldfields. They went to South Africa first and took up land in Johannesburg, possibly a selection, and tried their luck but were unsuccessful. They were there for three years and then returned to England.
John married Sarah Cooper in England in 1863. Some years later, with their three children and with his brother Thomas, they came to Australia. It took 90 days to get here on the sailing boat. The journey was long because they were becalmed for about 20 days.
Thomas took up land in Leneva and eventually John also took up land in Leneva. From there the family established and grew in the area.
Taking up land then was very different from today. Most of the country was natural bush. They cleared the land and the first few years of farming was clearing and cropping. Clearing was done with a horse and hard work, and ploughing was done with a single furrow plough. The product of the cropping was harvested with a scythe, processed and turned into chaff and carted into Wodonga as supplies for produce stores. Chaff then was like a petrol station today, you'd go and get your bag of chaff instead of some expensive fuel.
From there they moved on to sheep and cattle and eventually dairying.
My mother and father dairied at Leneva. Dad was one of the first farmers to use superphosphate.
That was a revelation at the time. I remember Dad with a bag over his shoulder, spreading the super by hand. The country responded brilliantly. The effect was so good that it was probably overdone because 1cwt. of super was put on each year whether the country needed it or not. It had the effect of building up too much nutriment on the surface, and too much fertility on the top encouraged cape weed, and other weeds and became what is termed super sour, so the country had to be worked up and given a spell off super and trace elements introduced. Trace elements are the thing today instead of super.
