The soldier settlement program at Kentucky was of great interest to Walcha after attempts by the Apsley Shire Council and Lieut. R.H. Blomfield MC failed to gain government support for a major soldier settlement establishment at Yarrowitch.
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The settlement would have involved the harvesting of timber as well as farming and grazing pursuits.
The first stage of the Kentucky settlement comprised 1885 acres of the Croft Estate, which had been sub-divided from Terrible Vale Station, together with 550 acres of the Kentucky grazing property.
Settlers did not take up their allotments until after contractors for the Lands Department had cleared the land, erected fences, planted fruit trees and constructed cottages for married couples or for single men as required.
The long-awaited railway siding at Kentucky South was opened in mid-1926.
Fruit was to be the settlers’ primary source of income but they also relied on cash crops of vegetables such as potatoes, turnips, onions and pumpkins, especially in the several years before the fruit trees became productive.
For many years, the authorities marketed the produce without charging commission.
The Armidale Express of April 4, 1922, reported: “The fruit trees at Kentucky are just coming into bearing and specimens of apples and pears can be seen in the windows of Anderson & Co, George Street, Sydney. Kentucky has already made an enviable name for the potatoes it produces.”
The long-awaited railway siding at Kentucky South was opened in mid-1926. An 80ft by 60ft packing shed at the siding was opened in March 1928, a time when the settlement’s output varied between 40,000 and 50,000 cases.
The Uralla Times of October 14, 1971, published a photo of uprooted apple and pear trees at a Kentucky South property with the caption reading: “The trees from this 55-year-old orchard have outlived their economic life and the land will now be sown to pasture.”
Armidale’s Jean Cooper wrote in 1993: “The settlement stretched from Kentucky railway station almost to Wollun platform, and eventually comprised 80 holdings totalling 7319 acres. Those within easy reach of the railway ranged from 40 to 100 acres while those further back were from 160 to 250 acres. By 1992 most of the orchards had been removed.”
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