Here’s a film from 1955 on Yeomans’ work in developing the Keyline farming system. It was made in 1955, and uploaded a year or so ago thanks to Darren Doherty, who runs workshops in contemporary keyline farm design:

One of my favourite lines from the film is this:

He’s ready with cold logic and forceful argument to present plans to the benefit of Australia

… which tells us something of the respect with which Yeomans was sometimes held (ie, he was not a hippy).

Even though the film was made 55 years ago, it’s a pretty good explanation of how keyline works, and why it’s a good idea.

A few stills I extracted from the film:

This is the same turn off the highway into the drive leading to Nevallan where I took this photo (note, as Ian says, the slight spelling change, as well as the “modernised” sign)…

This looks to be more or less the same vantage point where I took a shot of the modern Nevellan farm a few weeks ago:

And I just really enjoyed this part of the film, where the two fellows mark out the keyline by eye, using a long transparent hose and a bunch of stakes (it’s about five and a half minutes into the film):

Makes you think, “hey, I could do that!”…