 Many settlers were unable to succeed in raising sheep (recommended as the best use of the land) because of the widespread use of the Yarloop clover (recommended for use in heavy wet soils), which was subsequently discovered to reduce the fertility of sheep, but at the time the settlers were blamed for their poor farm management skills.Later it was an expensive exercise for farmers to remove the Yarloop clover and replace it with other varieties of clover.As a consequence of these issues, by the 1970s some settlers were in desperate financial circumstances and the government wanted to foreclose on their loans, forcing them to sell their farms, leading to desperate protests and legal action based on the misadvice they had received from public servants.