The farming of Lucerne has been part of our family since 1917. In this year Henry Wallis moved his wife and two children from a small dairy on the Bellingen river near Bellingin, to a 25 acre mixed farm on the flats between Morpeth and East Maitland in NSW.
Here he grew some vegetables with the bulk of the farm down to Lucerne.

All the hay making was done with horse drawn implements, carted and stacked loose for pressing later with a fixed in place hand press. The photos show hand loading the dray (1928) for transfer to the shed where it would be stored and hand made into large bales, (3 bales per ton) at a later date, probably on a wet day.

These large bales were loaded onto the dray, three per load, and taken by horse to the railway station at Morpeth or the station at East Maitland. From there they would be transported to dairy farmers in the Sydney basin or to the pit ponies in the coal fields in the Cessnock (NSW) area. These ponies would not see sunlight so they needed Lucerne hay as it supplied all the vitamins and minerals needed for them to work and survive.

The second photo shows a cart loaded with three bales (1 ton) ready for the trip to the station. This was a 15klm round trip. Two men could make six bales in a long day.

The  final photo is of a local produce display at Maitland show in 1930. The whole stack is made of Lucerne hay bales made from various sized bales ex the hand presses. Henry Wallis was a contributor to the stack and is in the photo.

There was never any work, including hay work, done on Sundays, rain, hail or sunshine.

My father Harold Wallis made Lucerne hay and green Lucerne sheaves after returning from active service in WW2. The sheaves would be made late in the afternoon and delivered fresh to the race track stables in the Newcastle area at daybreak next morning. He had also made and man handled the large bales when younger so was happy to have a market for the fresh Lucerne sheaves.

A series of eleven floods in three years saw the end of my fathers Lucerne farming project in the mid 1950’s and it was not until 1998 that we returned to growing Lucerne when my wife and I left dairying and purchased Manuka Farm for the Wallis family to return to the lucerne industry. This time it was to combine hay production with chaffing as an extension to the family tradition. We developed and cultivated many new crops and products including wheaten and oaten chaff and hay as well as our world-renowned lucerne mulch for gardens.

Our son Martin now manages the farm, the mill and local hay and silage contracting, together with ten other staff members.

The distribution area has grown to include all the northern part of NSW as well as southern Qld and southern NSW.