The Federation vision of Australia as an industrial landscape of production linked to international markets had to look to technology and science if such a vision were to be realised. Severe droughts across the nation in the periods 1895-1903 and 1911-16 highlighted the necessity of incorporating the climate into a program that sought to reduce all aberrant forms to fit national ideals. As land-use patterns based on the ideas of science were applied, environmental vagaries were denied and notions of agricultural settlement limited by rainfall isohyets were deemed outmoded. From the early 1900s the northern plains became the focus of prevailing institutional narratives based on 'land, labour, and capital'. State agendas of closer settlement, and federal programs of soldier settlement and migration settlement accompanied by the delivery of an irrigated water supply promised to bring certainty to an uncertain landscape.

As part of the closer settlement vision, under the Closer Settlement Act of 1904 a number of estates on the northern plains were made ready for the reception of irrigator settlers. On the former Restdown Plains West run, selections were purchased, stock removed, channels surveyed, and land subdivided into 184 allotments averaging 50 acres to form the new irrigated Bamawm Estate. J Roy, State Rivers and Water Supply Commission (SRWSC) District Secretary, reported on the remaking of the landscape in March 1910: 'The Estate is entirely clear of all recent occupants and all stock. Owing to the recent heavy rainfall the Estate looks very luxurious, in fact I have not seen it in such a good state at this time of the year for over 20 years.'²⁸ The following year, however, brought drought. Channels had not been completed, and Roy was obliged to report that water for domestic use was being carted to families on the Estate.²⁹

In April 1911, Harold Waterman, dairyman of Poowong in South Gippsland, applied for a fifty-acre irrigated block of land, which in 1841 had comprised part of the Restdown Plains run of 106,922 acres, and in 1873 had formed part of Paynter's selection of 89 acres.³⁰ Waterman's lease on the Bamawm Estate block required him to make half-yearly payments of £21 over 31½ years in order to pay off his allotment valued at £718 15s. In 1912, Harold, twenty-five years old, his wife Lillian aged twenty-eight, and two small children were living in a two-roomed unlined house with verandah paid for by a £70 advance from the Closer Settlement Board. A water tank, dam, shed, fowl house and fencing were listed as other improvements, and the family had sown three acres of maize, ten acres of wheat and three-quarters of an acre of onions. In the first few years, Harold supplemented the family's income by working on the channels under construction in the area and Lillian sold produce from the garden to canning factories in Bendigo.

By July 1912, 88 of the 138 lessees on the Bamawm Estate were requesting assistance by way of cash advances or deferred payments. Roy listed the causes of failure to meet payments as the limited carrying capacity of allotments until lucerne was established, small returns from dairy cows because of insufficient fodder due to dry seasons, inexperience in irrigation and cultivation, and expenditure of available capital. Harold was judged a 'first class man' by Roy, however in July 1913, after no payments had been made on £115 due in instalments, the Waterman family was informed that their permit for the area was to be cancelled and that the land would be made available to others. A written plea from Harold to SRWSC chairman Elwood Mead resulted in a reversal of this decision, but the demands from the SRWSC did not stop. By the dry year of 1914, because of a predicted shortage of fodder owing to the drought, the Watermans were hopeful that a return of £120 on six cuttings of their lucerne crop would allow payment of arrears. However, the 'unprecedented drought' of 1914-15 meant that irrigators were not supplied their allocated water, and by 27 January 1915 the Watermans owed £234 in instalments and £151 on a stock mortgage to the Commission. Because of the drought, the government established a scheme in April 1915 which allowed Closer Settlement lessees 'to improve their financial position by removing present pressing financial liabilities'. The Watermans applied for an extension of their lease and suspension of land instalments for three years but were refused as their debt was in excess of the security provided by their improvements.

PROV, VPRS 625/P0, Unit 162, Item 9470/19.20, survey field notes for allotment 66, Parish of Ballendella

On 4 March 1916, Harold enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force, serving as a motor transport driver in France until the end of the war. This action at least secured Lillian Waterman and her four children an eight shilling a day payment. Lillian, with the help of her eldest son and neighbours continued to farm the block in Harold's absence. Roy reported in 1916 that he found the place better than when Harold was working it, with the 'whole area now cultivated', however with part of the block under water because of the heavy rains of 1917, local farmers and members of the settlers' association were called upon to help. Friends, the Ballendella Progress Association and the Anzac Society carried out 'praiseworthy work' over three days on the Waterman's leasehold, pruning twenty acres of fruit trees, and ploughing, harrowing and drilling sixteen acres of wheat and barley.