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The works were at first dependent on the water races for supplies of water. Vegetable matter however made this water unsatisfactory and a well, 300 feet deep, was eventually sunk. Nevertheless, the introduction of the industry into the county was the direct result of the stock water-race system which made the increase in lamb production possible.

Increasing dependence on the refrigeration industry meant that sheep had to be bred as much for meat as for wool. Grigg had been one of the first farmers to introduce Southdown rams in order to produce an early maturing carcase for the frozen meat trade and, at the end of the period his son, John Charles Nattle Grigg, imported Southdown ewes and rams from King Edward’s flock at Sandringham. A more unusual leader in this development, although not precisely a pioneer, was Max Friedlander who in 1876 had joined his brother, Hugo, and another brother and cousin in an Ashburton business. During the 1880s the Friedlanders acquired a good deal of land including Dundas farm near Seafield, Kolmar and Ardagh farms at Lyndhurst and Roxburgh farm at Ashburton Forks. The last was described as ‘incomparably superior to any other place within many miles.’^[1] Max, the most colourful and sporting of the group, then turned to farming and in 1886 bought all the Hampshire Down sheep at the dispersal sale of Riversdale estate, Graham’s Road, Tinwald. He proved himself a skilful farmer both with sheep and crops. He won the majority of the prizes for all breeds of sheep at some of the Ashburton shows, and ran over five sheep to the acre and produced thirty bushels of wheat to the acre on his 2000 acres of light land at Kolmar. Although it was said that ‘farmers looked askance at the blackfaced “niggers”’ the Hampshire Downs proved themselves exceedingly profitable. Friedlander did well out of these sheep until in order to come to the rescue of the family firm he was forced to sell Kolmar in 1896. However, the breed then fell out of favour until recent times.

At times during the 1880s and 1890s Ashburton County had been producing two-thirds of the grain in Canterbury, but by the beginning of the new century the amount declined to less than one-third. This was one result of the increase in sheep numbers. The addition to the numbers was certainly considerable. There were just over 600,000 sheep in the county in 1882; nearly 900,000 in 1903—an increase of forty-five per cent. More significant still, as an indication of the changes in farming and indeed in the appearance