Inglis family's roots run deep at Merriton, Glendambo

The current custodians of Ingleside include husband and wife Lin and Maureen, their son Sam and his wife Jade, and their daughters Adele and Eliza.

They run a commercial cattle enterprise and cropping operation across three parcels of land - at their home base Merriton, 17 kilometres south west of Crystal Brook, another 15 minutes west at Wandearah and Wirraminna Station, via Glendambo.

Their forebears would look on with pride at what has grown from humble beginnings.

The cattle enterprise is award-winning, while the cropping side uses all the latest machinery and technology.

Two Scottish emigrants, the 32-year-old Andrew Inglis and his widowed father Samuel, first set eyes on the wooded slopes near Merriton in 1873.

Andrew bought 270 hectares when the Crystal Brook district was opened up for selection, while Samuel bought 223ha of his own.

It was a tough slog in the early years, Lin said, with no fences, no stock and no income.

"When my great great uncle Andrew and his father came here, they rode here on horseback with an axe," he said.

"There was no water - the water was at the river 3km away. They had to chop down a few trees and use mud and sticks to make shelter to live in.

"There was no food - it took a fair few years to get it cleared to actually start making money."

Andrew inherited his father's property in 1890 and had expanded his holding to 1620ha by 1904.

The property remained a similar size as it was handed down through the generations in the first 100 years.

Starting with Andrew Inglis in 1873, in 1973 the property was being managed by Andrew (Snow) Inglis with the support of sons Andrew R. and Lin.

While Snow moved to Crystal Brook to live with wife Gwenda in 1972, he made the 17km trip out to the farm each day for the next 27 years.

Lin and Maureen, who met through Rural Youth, moved into the Ingleside homestead following their marriage in February 1973.

Besides a four-year stretch at a boarding school in Adelaide, which he said was "more than enough", Lin has lived at the property his entire life.

The couple say the change they've witnessed in the past 50 years has been nothing short of enormous, with machinery and technology making farming far more time efficient and larger scale.

"The change has been absolutely huge," Maureen said.

"When I came here 50 years ago there were no motorbikes and stock work was done on horseback.

"(Then) 100 years before that there were still horses.

"All of the different machinery that has been developed in the past 50 years tells a story of how things have changed."

They say the differences can be stark.

"I had to wait a half hour for a load of super in Port Pirie the other day and the bloke behind me was complaining," Lin said.

"We used to have to go and get bags, lump them around, then wash them out afterwards."

The Inglis family are award-winning Shorthorn breeders and producers, with two Southern Grassfed Carcase Classic titles under their belt.

The competition is the largest carcase competition in Australia, but the family remain humble about their success, giving most of the credit to good seasonal conditions in the years they won.

Their enterprise is split into three facets - the 3053 square kilometre Wirraminna Station, near Glendambo, 2815ha at Wandearah and 2764ha at their home farm at Merriton, which includes 1084ha leased from Lin's brother Andrew R.

"Bush tucker is a lot better we've found," Lin said.

"You can fatten something a lot quicker up on the station - if you had a rain at Wirraminna or Mount Willoughby, the cattle would be fat in two months, whereas it'd be about three months here and six months in the South East."

Lin described Merriton as "a pretty reliable area" with an annual rainfall average of about 380 millimetres.

We don't have wet droughts either like some of those really high potential cropping areas like Clare," he said.

While the Inglis's did have 4000 sheep at Merriton at one stage following the wool boom, their focus has shifted to beef cattle and cropping.

Lin said they had run Shorthorn cattle for as long as he could remember.

"My grandfather had an AIS (Australian Illawarra Shorthorn) stud, that's going back 100 years," he said.

"We started dealing cattle in the drought of 1959. My dad and (livestock agent) Harry Pavy flew up to Billa Kalina and ... and bought a mob of store steers."

The family breed their own bulls for Wirraminna, which Sam describes as like a breeding block where the herd graze on natural bush feed like clovers and blue bush.

Mustering and weaning on the station is carried out twice a year, with anything six months of age onwards transported south for growing out and fattening.

The cattle are sold on-hooks at two years of age to Teys at Naracoorte.

Sam said good temperament was the main breeding objective and selection criteria used when culling.

He said it made handling and mustering easier, and less stress during the trip to the abattoir resulting in better eating quality.

"Shorthorns have good meat quality, are good mothers and finish out quite well," he said.

"The steers average about 350 kilograms dressed. I've had cattle that have gone over 400kg milk tooth."

"You're paid by the kilogram, so more kilos means more money."

While the Inglis's also do 3000ha of cropping across Merriton and Wandearah - 1000ha of wheat, 600ha of barley, 100ha of oats for hay, and 1300ha of a vetch/barley mix and straight barley for cattle feed - Lin said cattle remained king.

"The cattle enterprise is actually more profitable than our cropping enterprise because the inputs into Wirraminna are nowhere near the inputs into cropping given the machinery, fertiliser and chemical costs," he said.

"When a tonne of wheat was $200, we got $200 for our steers - a tonne of wheat was equal to a decent steer.

"Now we're getting $3000 for our steers and getting $400 for a tonne of wheat.

"We can grow a lot more grain than we used to but, in terms of profitability, cattle have grown a lot more."

The youngest generation, Adele, year 12, and Eliza, year 10, are heavily involved in the farm and are carrying on a proud tradition of strong and capable Ingleside women.

Adele is doing a school-based apprenticeship, a Certificate III in agriculture, meaning she does a day a week of work on the farm, and often a lot more, especially at seeding and harvest time.

She won the agriculture achievement award at St Marks College at Port Pirie in 2022 and plans to continue working on the family farm after school.

The Inglis sisters both enjoy helping out at home and run their own crossbred sheep flock, taking responsibility for organising tasks like shearing.

Jade, nee Darley, is also an integral part of the Ingleside enterprise.

Raised at Crystal Brook, Jade studied civil engineering and works for the department of transport, going part time since having the kids and working for the farm the rest of the week helping with cattle work, harvest and seeding, as well as bookkeeping.

The family's matriarch Maureen, nee Jacobs, grew up on a farm at Wandearah before meeting Lin.

"I went to Adelaide for a couple of years to work before coming back here to get married," she said.

"Growing up on a farming property, I saw my mother out there working all the time - she was my Dad's right-hand woman.

"I also had three sisters and we were required to be out there working - whether it was sheep work, shearing time or whatever was going on."

When Maureen arrived at Ingleside, there wasn't an accepted role for females at the time so she pursued off-farm interests, working as a counsellor, in community education, human resources and mediation, but says she is delighted to see women very much included in the farm's present day operations.

Lin credits his grandmother Edith for keeping Ingleside afloat when Lin's great great uncle (aged 90) and grandfather (aged 42) died in consecutive years.

It was nearly the end of the farm due to the death duties imposed at the time.

"My grandmother Edith just scraped through and ended up running the show for a fair while," Lin said.

Edith's eldest child Jean is also a legendary figure at Ingleside, having worked at the farm while her two older brothers went to war.

Seizing opportunities during tough times have led to some defining moments for the Inglis family.

They bought grazing land when livestock were worth "basically nothing".

Lin said two stock agents in particular had been critical to their success and navigating seasonal challenges.

"We've had two real good stock agents in my life, one of which was Harry Pavy," he said.

"He came out and talked us into buying grazing land at Wandearah when sheep were worth nothing. We thought he was mad, but it turned out to be a really good decision.

"I remember taking sheep to Jamestown and when I say they were worth nothing, there was no bid or offer and I brought them back again.

"So we bought grazing land when we couldn't sell our sheep, but Harry Pavy had the foresight to say 'buy this land and use it as a haystack'.

"We didn't pay a lot for it because no one would buy it."

The other agent was Tom Wardle.

"He got us into agisting cattle on Mount Willoughby and that progressed into buying Wirraminna," Lin said.

"Those two really helped push us along."

It would be hard not to get sentimental about land that has been worked, cared for and lived on by one's family for 150 years.

The passion for their slice of farming paradise was evident in talking to the Inglis family.

Driving across the paddocks where so many of his forebearers did, Sam said there was a real sense of history when waking up each day.

He said he is just "teeing it up" for the next generation to come along and do their bit.

"Farming has its challenges, but if it was easy everyone would be doing it," he said.

"With both Lin and Sam, the love of the land runs through them and you can't shift it." Maureen said.

"There's a huge attachment to this land."