{"id":29896,"date":"2017-12-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-12-14T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.farmersweekly.co.nz\/the-jones-boys-are-still-farming\/"},"modified":"2017-12-15T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-12-14T11:00:00","slug":"the-jones-boys-are-still-farming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.farmersweekly.co.nz\/news\/the-jones-boys-are-still-farming\/","title":{"rendered":"The Jones boys are still farming"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

He had emigrated from Somerset in England in 1875 and initially bought a 140-hectare dairy farm in Frontier Road, Te Awamutu, where he milked 26 cows by hand.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He married Nancy Starrat in 1895 then, when fertility on the farm ran out, they moved to Taranaki in 1900, droving the herd down.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They farmed Maori lease land and the herd grew to 110 cows. Wallace became a director of Riverdale Dairy Co-op.<\/p>\n

They moved back north in 1905 and bought the land at Wharepoa.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wallace died in 1913 and his son Wallace Francis Jones bought another 125ha farm on Rawe Rawe Road on the Hauraki Plains in 1917.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That property has just been approved for Century Farms status, having been run by the same family continuously for 100 years.<\/p>\n

His son, 87-year-old Ken Jones, remembered how stock were swapped between the two properties around Christmas to quell the effects of copper deficiency and peat sickness.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was amazing to see how quickly their coats changed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last half inch would go brown.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another problem was fescue foot, where high ergot levels in that grass meant cows\u2019 feet could easily get infected.<\/p>\n

Ken still had well-kept letters of his father\u2019s, writing to his bride-to-be Daisy Sage, telling her every detail of his search for a suitable house to move onto the peat land as former gold mining housing became available in Waihi.<\/p>\n

That house, still there today, was where Wallace Francis raised his family of five.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They started off milking 80 cows through a 10-bail, walk-through dairy and carting cream to the bottom of the road to go by river to the Kopu butter factory until one was built at Ngatea in 1920.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sons Arthur and Ken both went to Massey and Arthur bought the farm in 1953.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The dairy was extended to a 16-aside herringbone in 1974 then a 42-aside in 1993.<\/p>\n

Artie, Arthur\u2019s son, bought the farm in 1994, a year before his father\u2019s death and still lived in the old homestead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He added several adjacent blocks and now milked 620 cows producing 190,000 kilograms of milksolids under a DairyNZ system 2 operation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But flooding was still one of the biggest production constraints though the peat had now compressed.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the farm is 1.5 metres below sea level and in March we lost 40ha underwater for two weeks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

It was resown then another heavy rain meant all that work had to be redone.<\/p>\n

His son, Sam, who was developing a dairy and kiwifruit property at Opotiki, was likely to be the fourth Jones to be in charge of the farm.<\/p>\n

Ken bought another 116ha dairy farm of his father\u2019s close by in 1954 and had since added to that with both dairying and kiwifruit purchases.<\/p>\n

Century Farm and Station Awards co-ordinator Mel Foster said there had regularly been 30 to 40 applications a year for recognition since the awards were set up in 2005.<\/p>\n

\u201cReturned soldier settlements will soon be coming through and we\u2019ve had one of those this year,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Plaques denoting farms\u2019 status were presented at a dinner in Lawrence, Central Otago, in May. About 200 people, many making it a family get together, attended.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody is very proud of their history and there are fascinating stories of some of the hardships they\u2019ve gone through,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great we can acknowledge that on the night.\u201d<\/p>\n

So how would Wallace Francis Jones feel about the farm gaining an award to mark its 100 years in family ownership?<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019d be quite chuffed,\u201d Ken said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho wouldn\u2019t be?<\/p>\n

\u201cMy father always said that you buy peat land for the next generation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first 125 hectares of land Wallace Jones bought at Wharepoa near Thames was so flood-prone the locals said he would have been better off in jail than trying to farm it.\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":29897,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t