Leaving Tipapa For Queensland

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30895, 30 October 1965, Page 8

Leaving Tipapa For Queensland

After a period of 70 to 80 years the wellknown Tipapa property in the Motunau district in North Canterbury is passing out of the hands of the Acton-Adams family.

Mr William Acton-Adams, the grandfather of the most recent member of the family to hold the property, bought more than 13,000 acres of Motunau station, one of the first stations to be settled in Canterbury, about 1888, according to Acland in “The Early Canterbury Runs,” and combined this with more than 5000 acres of Crown leasehold to form Tipapa. The property has been in the hands of the Acton-Adams family ever since.

Tipapa has been much whittled down in size since those days. Mr W. Acton-Adams, who has been farming Tipapa since the death of his father towards the end of 1941, has now disposed of the remaining 2043 acres to a neighbour, Mr D. E. Robertson, who bought about another 700 acres of Tipapa from Mr Acton Adams in 1946-47. The change in ownership does not become effective until the end of next month, but Mr Acton-Adams and his family will be leaving Tipapa about November 8 to live for a little while in Christchurch before leaving for Queensland where he and his wife have bought a 6600-acre cattle property situated about 30 miles from Clermont, which is some 700 miles north of Brisbane. They take over this Australian property on March 1 next year. Undara Downs Undara Downs is the name of the Acton-Adams’ Queensland station. In the aborignal language this means “long way.” Undara Downs is 175 miles south-east of Mackay, which is on the Queensland coast. It is located on the central highlands, an area of some 24m acres covered by a rich black soil about a foot to five feet in depth and actually measured to be up to 14ft in some places. The Queensland Government is pushing the development of this area, according to Mr Acton-Adams, and a special technical advisory service is located at Emerald to guide development on this country. The Government is also making considerable strides in clearing this country of brigalow. a quite tall bushy type uf tree, which is pulled, sometimes crushed and burnt prior to sowing the country down.

Undara Downs has little brigalow. At 900 ft above sea level and in an area with a rainfall of about 29 inches (mainly summer rainfall), Mr Acton-Adams says that it has an attractive parkland appearance with occasional trees dotted over the landscape. Almost the whole of the 6600 acres could be cultivated, he said, and it seemed that as the land was easily worked a rather less comprehensive range of implements would be needed than, for instance, was required on Tipapa. The equipment would include a big disc plough, a scarifier or grubber, and a drill. With a powerful tractor in the 90 to 100 horsepower class, he said that grubbers and drills could be coupled up in pairs to get over the country quickly and Mr Acton-Adams envisages working Undara Downs with only one man besides himself. Undara Downs is a cattle

property with crops like sorghum, wheat, safflower and more recently rape and turnips being grown to supplement the feed for the cattle. Where areas of cereal crops are greater than are needed as greenfeed crops for the cattle, they may be carried on for harvesting if they are good enough for this purpose. Brahman-Shorthorn cross cattle more suited to the tropical climate are run on the property, which has been carrying 1000 to 1400 head. There has been a herd of about 250 breeding cows. Mr Acton-Adams says that the area is well served by rail and road transport and there are a number of outlets for the cattle off the place. Among these are saleyards at places like Clermont, Blair Athol and Emerald, meat Works at Rockhampton and Brisbane and the Brisbane market at Cannon Hill. It is grazing homestead leasehold country that Mr Acton-Adams and. his wife have taken over as tenants in common, and they have made application to freehold the

t country. If they are allowed t to do this, as they expect they 1 will, they will pay about a - third more than the rental i for the property over the - term of the lease to pay off ■ the principle and this will - not be subject to any interest - payments. ' In the recent drought—--1 about eight inches of rain fell on the property last year 1 —Mr Acton-Adams said that Undara Downs seemed to ; have come through quite well > with green crops still grow- ! ing and it seemed to have

fared better than country further west. The property is well provided for water with bores for stock and domestic purposes. Undara Downs is incidentally bounded on three sides by 946,000 acres Logan Downs, of which it was formerly part. It was the Logan Downs Pastoral Company that

recently tested in the Courts legislation authorising the Australian Wool Board to collect a levy from growers to help meet the International Wool Secretariat’s expanded programme of promotion, research and technical service. Dingos, kangaroos, foxes, emus, and pigs are common in this area and a 6ft high marsupial fence surrounds Undara Downs. The Acton-Adams naturally have mixed feelings about leaving their pleasant home and farm in the North Canterbury coastal hill country, with which their forebears have had such a long association, and also their relatives —Mrs Acton-Adams, who was formerly Miss Sylvia Scott, has a mother and two brothers in Christchurch —but Mr Acton-Adams said this week that he felt that there were more incentives in Queensland and more opportunities for their family if they wanted to go farming—they have two sons aged nine and 10 years as well as two daughters. Privileged The Queensland grazier or pastoralist he had been told, said Mr Acton-Adams, was the most privileged member of the community. In contrast to the position in New Zealand Mr Acton-Adams said that the maximum level of taxation was not reached until income reached £16,000 (£3600 in New Zealand). There was also a deduction of £l5O allowable from taxable income for every child who attended a boarding school. The ActonAdams’ boys will go to a grammar school in Rockhampton and one of the girls will be attending another grammar school for girls in the same town. The other daughter is not old enough yet to go to boarding school. The Acton-Adams have found that in contrast to New Zealand there is no trouble in getting children into schools like these and the cost is no more and probably less than in New Zealand. The prospects are for a bigger return on capital employed in farming in Queensland than in New Zealand, in Mr Acton-Adams’s opinion; There was also free hospital treatment in Queensland and a ready availability of goods. Mr Acton-Adams said he had been surprised to find when he went into a motor salesroom in Brisbane at 1.30 p.m. to inquire about a station waggon, that he was straight away asked whether

he would take delivery of it that afternoon and what colour of vehicle and upholstery he would like. “Queensland is three times the size of Texas.” says Mr Acton-Adams, “with a population of 1.3 m people and it has got a very big poten jtial.” He had two sons and while there was no certainty at present what they would eventually do, if they wanted to go farming it was much easier to go out and buy more land and buy it more cheaply in Queensland, on present indications, than it was in New Zealand, and a young man worth his salt was able to do something with the country waiting development The Acton-Adams family has a long and distinguished association with farming in the South Island and Canterbury. The pioneer member of the family, an English soliciqtor, Mr William Adams, who arrived in Nelson in 1850, became first superintendent of Marlborough and was afterwards a member of the House of Representatives, took .up two runs in the Wairau, including Langley Dale, which is still in the hands of members of the family. His son, Williams Acton-Adams, was a man of many parts. He became a barrister and solicitor and was active in politics and local body affairs. He also acquired widespread farming interests. In 1878 he acquired a half share in the Tarndale run, which is now part of the great Molesworth property, and subsequently he controlled Tarndale, Molesworth and the Rainbow and about 1907 shore 45,000 sheep there. His other interests included the Hopefield - Woodbank station, Island Farm in the Harewood district, Salop Downs in the West Melton district, the Clarence Reserve and finally Tipapa. At about the end of the century there were about 75,000 sheep on the properties that he controlled in conjunction with his sons. One of these, Reginald, subsequently farmed in Western Australia so that the Acton-Adams are not new to the Australian farming scene. A feature of Tipapa is its fine wooden two-storey homestead of 14 rooms completed in 1928 during the time of the present Mr Acton-Adams’s father, Mr Herbert ActonAdams, who was responsible for the planting of most of the trees which grace the homestead today. The present homestead replaces one on the same site built by Mr William Acton-Adams, which was pulled down in 1926.