.jpg)
The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Otago & Southland Provincial Districts]
Mccall, Hugh
Mccall, Hugh , Farmer, Clover Meadows, Seaward Downs. Mr McCall has 694 acres of freehold land, which he devotes to mixed farming, including dairying; as many as fifty cows are milked during the flush of the season. Clydesdale horses are a special line, and some splendid animals have been reared, and a firstclass entire is still retained by Mr McCall. The property includes an extensive flat, which was originally covered with rushes and raupo. Large sums of money have been expended in clearing, draining, and cultivating this flat, and in 1904 from twenty-five to thirty miles of drain ploughing was completed. Mr McCall was born in the town of Ayr, Scotland, on the 9th of February, 1852. He attended school in Ayrshire, and was brought, brought up by his grandfather. In 1865, Mr McCall landed in Melbourne, and came in the month of April, of the same year, to join his people in Dunedin. The family settled in Shag Valley, where Mr McCall gained most of his colonial country experience. When he was nineteen years and six months old, his father gave him a pair of horses, and he at once commenced cropping on his own account in the Waikouaiti district. Four years later, he engaged in contracting and carting on the roads, and, later, commenced farming in the Palmerston district. Mr McCall had contracts for eleven years afterwards in connection with railway works, and at the end of that period settled in the Taieri, where he remained four years. In June, 1897, he took up his land at Seaward Downs. Mr McCall was one of the chief promoters of the Seaward Downs dairy factory and he has been a director from the first, and became chairman in 1898. As a breeder of stock, he has been interested in Clydesdales since he was twenty-three years of age, and, in 1904, he sent away 1,123 fat lambs from his farm to the freezing works. Mr McCall was married, on the 15th of September, 1876, to a daughter of the late Mr Robert Drysdale, of Glenlis, Stranraer, Scotland, and of Shag Valley, Otago, and has eight sons and three daughters.