The Sheffield District High School has had a cattle handlers team for over ten years. The purpose of the team is to instill confidence and teach cattle handling skills to the students involved. Places in the team are highly sought after by students.

Dunlop Park has been associated with the Sheffield School Cattle Handlers team since its inception. Each year we have lent several heifers to the school to be trained by the students. Over the years many fine young Tasmanians have trained our heifers and shown them at Agricultural Shows throughout Tasmania. Some of the students who have done this include Tim Woodham (winner of the 1997 Tasmanian Junior Cattle Judging Competition), Callum Woodham, Brian Allen, Tim Jeffery (1995 state champion junior cattle handler), Nikki Allen (who was a reporter with Tasmania's rural newspaper, the Tasmanian Country), Dale Keen (winner of award for being the most helpful, 1997), Scott Jeffery and Sharon Allen.

Above: Sharon Allen with Dunlop Park Stardust Q8 (1996 Devonport Show Junior Champion Angus Female) at the Devonport Show 30/11/1996. Brian Stewart, co-principle of Dunlop Park, in the background.

For more information drop us a line at dunlop.park.angus@tassie.net.au

Return to the Dunlop Park Angus Hompage

The following article, about the Sheffield School Farm, appeared in an old copy of the now defunct Australian rural newspaper "The Leader"

The Leader, Wed., March 26, 1952
Tasmanian Area School Farm Highly Remunerative
By "The Leader" Correspondent

FEATURES of the Sheffield area school in the north-west of Tasmania is the large farm attached to it, the ample scope it provides for farming tuition to the older boys, and that it is highly remunerative.

IT MUST be one of the few Government ventures anywhere that pays its way. The farm consists of 166 acres of excellent land, which is used for sheep, cows, pigs, general farming and cash cropping.

The idea of a central or consolidated school to serve an extensive rural area was brought to Tasmania in 1935, and the first school of the type was established at Sheffield. Gradually the district schools were closed, or confined to the tuition of juniors, and the great majority of children transported to the school.

Today there is a roll of more than 500 at Sheffield nearly doubling the population of the town in the day time.

Farm tuition is a feature at all these schools of which there are about 30 in Tasmania, but the size of the farm at Sheffield is much above normal.

Cost £6000
THE FARM cost £6000, but would be worth several times that sum today, since it has been greatly improved by cultural methods.

The farm work is under the supervision of Mr. J. Firth, a teacher with special farm knowledge, and he is assisted and advised by experts of the Department of Agriculture. Once a week an agricultural officer visits each of the area schools.

While an eye is kept on making the farm pay&emdash;as an institution teaching boys to farm should-the students are interested in various features of farm work. What is easy to learn is tractor driving, and a large percentage of the boys can be classed as skilled drivers.

Wool, Cows, Peas
A MONEY SPINNER has been wool from the 350 ewes kept. They are of pure breeding, and several types are represented, to give the students a sound grounding in breed diversity. English and Border Leicesters, Romney Marsh and Dorset Horns are among the list.

The milking herd consists of 15 Jersey and Friesian cows. The milk is separated, and the cream sold to the Devonport butter factory.

Five Canadian Berkshire sows are kept, and there is a keen local market for this farm stock.

Poultry raising is practised, and the students are instructed in approved modern methods.

Some potatoes are grown but the chief cash crop is the canning peas, and some excellent returns have been secured from the eight acres sown.

Barley is also grown to the extent of 12 acres, but it is used as pig feed.

Attention is given to pastures, which are fertilised, and some 2000 bales of meadow hay made. Supplemental fodder is provided by paddocks of choumoellier and swede turnips, as well as rape.

Farm Practices
IMPROVEMENT of farm practice receives close attention, in which the interest of the students is stimulated.

It has been found that the late sowing of rape and choumoellier makes for better weed control.

Sown in December, it has been found that the young plants have not the competition from weed growth that earlier sowing had subject them to.

In regard to ensilage making, the latest English practice is that the stack method of silage can be adjusted to save labor and time. It is planned next season to build a stack on a hillside, carting the green stuff from the higher side, and depositing it on the stack site, thus saving an elevator.

The aim is that the students should feel interested in their work, and learn the most modern farm practice in the various divisions.