The estate consisted principally of rich land, well suited for agriculture, about 60,000 acres in extent, freehold, and depastured 60,000 sheep and about 1000 pure Shorthorn cattle.
[3] The brothers next appointed unmarried man Harry Price as resident manager, with a 50% ownership interest, but by 1858 all had mutually decided to sell out.
That same year, for the education of his children, R Boucher James returned to England and an employee, Thomas Goode was made the manager.
In 1865 a government sponsored town named Canowie was surveyed eleven kilometres south of the homestead, on the Booborowie Road.
The new owners were R Boucher James (37.5%), Johnson Frederick Hayward (12.5%), and two new partners, William Sanders (25%) and John Benjamin Graham (25%).
R Boucher James, as majority shareholder, was influential in the direction of the sheep, horse, and cattle studs, particularly in the importation of prize-winning bloodstock from England.
In its heyday Canowie was a self-contained village, with stables, blacksmith, school, cemetery, eating house, and cart sheds.
With over 40 permanent employees, plus their families, it had a 100-man shearers’ quarters, a 38 stand shearing shed, and its 65,000 sheep produced a wool clip of 1,752 bales.
The part of the property that remains is the original homestead complex surrounded by a mixed cropping and grazing farm now known as Old Canowie.