At first, agriculture prospered and early European settlers quickly cleared native vegetation and planted cereal crops.

The success of the first two decades of farming was mirrored in the construction of a flour mill at nearby Old Noarlunga and of the growth of that town.

Those who farmed the land now contained at and near Seaford Rise included the Teakle, Robinson, Jared, Oliver and Martin families.

These people, and others like them, learned that reliance on wheat alone was fraught with danger – by the late 1860s, land was worn out from constant cropping and yields had dropped to low levels.

The system of farming, therefore, altered to a mixed form including sheep, poultry, small dairies and a diversity of cereal crops.