In 1914 Dad bought a new "Essex 4" motor car. And he was one of the first farmers to have a tractor - the steel wheeled variety; Fordson, and other makes later. Fuel was cheap in those days, and came in wooden boxes, two in a box 1/3d a tin. These boxes had various uses for furniture - three boxes nailed together made a window seat for bedrooms, covered with cretonne. The tins were used for milk buckets, with a handle added at the top. Necessity is the mother of invention! Wheat was carted by wagons, before the motor trucks came.

When my grandfather was advised by his doctor to "go north" he and my grandmother purchased 1800 acres of land in the Victorian Mallee. Perhaps they were influenced by the current thinking of the politicians and intellectuals of the day who considered that closer settlement of the country was required to alleviate the depression of the 1890s. The Land Board Officers assured them that the Mallee had good rainfall, but ignored possible droughts.