A well-known mixed farming property in the Central West due to go under the hammer at Forbes next week has links to the early history of Grenfell.
Adelargo is a productive property of 1100 hectares (2718ac) situated about 15 kilometres north-east of Grenfell on the aptly-named Adelargo Road.
It is owned today by Bill and Sonia Smithers, who bought it six years ago to operate as a sheep breeding and trading enterprise, managed today by their son and daughter.
The owners live on a small orchard property near Young, and are now selling Adelargo to scale down.
They have listed the property with Ian Simpson of Ian Simpson and Company at Forbes and it will go to auction on February 22 with bidding expected in a range of $3750-$5000/ha ($1500-$2000/acre).
Although today a property of modest proportions, Adelargo was a sizeable sprawl of just under 17,000 acres of freehold and leasehold land when bought by Frank Kinleside in 1909.
Successive generations of the Kinleside family held the property as it diminished in size during the ensuing century.
The property started life as the Native Dog Creek Station portion of the vast Brundah Run, settled in the 1830s by John Wood of Waugoola.
And it was Con O’Brien, a shepherd who resided on the station, who in 1866 discovered the gold reef on Wood’s country that sparked the Emu Creek gold rush at what is now Grenfell.
O’Brien later became the owner of Native Dog, which was renamed Adelargo by the next owner, Thomas McNevin, who by the turn of the century was running 6800 sheep on the property.
Today Adelargo is described as a property of level to undulating country with soils ranging from heavy alluvials to lighter red loams.
About 70 per cent of the country is arable, parts of which are cropped in rotation for supplementary fodder for the mainstay sheep enterprise.
Pastures of native grasses and introduced clovers, with supplementary cropping, have supported a typical stocking rate estimated by the owners at about 3500 ewes.
The property is now being progressively destocked as sale day approaches, and is carrying about 1500 sheep and lambs.
Average rainfall is about 660mm and the property is watered by Native Dog Creek, two bores reticulating to paddock troughs, and 22 dams.
The main homestead is a substantial brick residence of seven bedrooms, constructed in 1911 for Frank Kinleside with period features including pressed metal ceilings and open fireplaces.
Although some recent renovations have been undertaken, the homestead is ripe for a makeover and it offers many possibilities to an imaginative new owner.
It is complemented by a three-bedroom manager’s cottage with reverse-cycle air conditioning and wood heating.
The solid, six-stand shearing shed dating from 1905 is no longer equipped but can house 1300 sheep when needed.
Other working structures include steel cattle yards, machinery shed, workshop, grain and hay sheds, silos and original shearers’ quarters and kitchen block.
By PETER AUSTIN.
