SOLDIERS returning from The Great War were rewarded for their service by having the chance to establish themselves as farmers by applying for crown land or other land governments had acquired for the purpose.
The Soldier Settlement Scheme as it was known was a co-operative venture between the Commonwealth and State governments.
The move was partly in recognition of their military service in that first global conflict, but also had the more pragmatic aim of populating some of the more remote and sparsely settled areas of the continent.
Each State enacted its own scheme and in NSW the land was centred around places such as Griffith, Hillston, Glen Innes, Batlow, Dorrigo and even in the Sydney suburbs of Seven Hills and Bankstown.
In NSW successful applicants were given financial assistance for clearing, fencing, drainage and other improvements, to erect buildings and for purchase of stock, implements and other items required to develop the land.
They were required to stay at least five years, to complete boundary fences within three years and repay the capital value in annual instalments plus interest of five per cent.
When all the money was paid and conditions met, they were given freehold title.
By mid-1924 in NSW, 6448 farms totaling about 360,000 hectares had been settled in this way. The figure doesn't include those who transferred, forfeited or surrendered their holdings.
Almost 80pc of the land was in the Western Division and more than 24,000ha in irrigation districts.
A similar scheme was adopted after World War II.
Still today some of the holdings remain with descendants of the original settlers.
One of these is the Griffith district property - known only as Farm 393 - where the original soldier settlement block has been absorbed into a larger enterprise run by Tom Condon and his son Jon.
Mr Condon, aged 85, said his father, also Tom, experienced the horrors of trench warfare in the battlefields of the Somme and Paschendale in France and Belgium.
After his return, he was allocated under the soldier settlement scheme about 150 acres (60 hectares) east of Griffith, including some irrigated horticulture blocks.
They also undertook dairy farming, but that was a failure.
"The separated cream had to wait by the side of the road to be picked up by a horse and cart, and taken to the factory at Leeton about half a day's travel away, and there was no refrigeration," Mr Condon said.
He said his father's family and many other soldier settlers went broke, resulting in a "big sort out" with about two-thirds of them leaving the land, with their properties being taken over by the remainder.
Those who left were paid 300 pounds and their debts were forgiven.
Mr Condon said many of those who stuck with it were saved by the introduction of rice growing in the district in about 1924.
"Within a couple of years there were 100 rice crops".
"They found it was the best rice growing area in the world," he said.
"The Yenda district was the first in the world to achieve four tonnes a hectare. In those days the average was about two tonnes.
"The soldier settlers did a fantastic job," Mr Condon said.
"They came out of the trenches and faced terrific hardships.
"There was no electricity and no running water in the houses".
Things have come a long way since then. Now, Mr Condon's family runs a successful 500ha enterprise, which includes rice growing, prime lambs, and wine grapes.
Griffith's grape expectation
GRIFFITH district wine grape and stone fruit grower, Paul Carver, still farms a block that his grandfather acquired after World War 1.
His grandfather, Sydney Carver, who served on the Western Front in the 12th Australian machine gun company of the 46th Battalion, was allocated the 28 acre (11 hectare) solders' settler block on his return.
"Before the war he had no interest in farming," Mr Carver said.
He said his grandfather had spoken little about the war, but Paul had always been curious about his army career, and had been able to put together some information with the help of the internet.
He said his grandfather had been educated in England, but his home was Australia and he enlisted in the Australian army when the war started.
Mr Carver said conditions in farming in those early days for his grandfather had been "impossible".
"He proceeded to clear the land I suppose, but they just existed for a long time."
With the coming of the Great Depression in the 1930s, however, he had been able to acquire two other blocks, helped by low interest loans.
"They grew grapes for McWilliams, and we are still supplying McWilliams".
Mr Carver said his own father, Wally, now 80 years old, had inherited the farm in about 1955.
Now the Carvers farm a 30ha block plus other country nearby.
He said by a strange coincidence, land they had bought 20 years was known as "block 2637" - the same figure as his grandfather's war service number.
