The dairy blocks, which were in the higher rainfall area of Yarrowitch, ranged from 551 acres to 670 acres while the grazing blocks ranged from 1,010 acres to 2,300 acres.

A total 837 applications were received of which 716 were admitted to the ballot drawn on March 10 at the Walcha Court House. Not all of the men who were among the 17 first drawn took up their allotted block. 

The dairymen were Charles Hoare, James Keaton, Jock McLaughlin, James McMahon and Stanford Medling while the graziers were Bernard Brearley, Charles Brooke, Bruce Brown (Walcha), William Donlan, Lesley Dryden, John Hutchinson, Rupert Littlewood, Richard Meldrum, Douglas Mitchell-Hill, Ernest Sendall, James Shaw and Bert Schalk (Kentucky).

Two names were drawn at a further ballot held among the new landholders giving each the right to purchase and remove one of the two wings at the rear of the old Yarrowitch homestead. The authorities had set a fixed price for each of the wings.

The government also set aside an area for a school, some building blocks and a recreation reserve. The first stage of the Yarrowitch hall was built on the reserve in 1951; the school, however, remained in its original location.

John Hutchinson, who named his block Willowdene, wrote: “Bernard Brearley and I were in residence at Yarrowitch by April, 1948. More settlers arrived through the winter and most were in occupation by October, 1948.

He also wrote of some of the problems facing the new settlers: “At the outset blackberries covered huge areas along the river, in all the gullies and in most of the damp places. Dingoes and wild dogs were a constant threat to settlers on the edge of the estate while those bordering the forest areas also had to deal with wild pigs.”