1864. Cornwall. In the wake of the Agricultural Revolution, Benjamin and Emma Bowden decide to emigrate. They are pawns in a much bigger scheme, which is to divest Britain of its poor and send them to Wakefield's Free-Colony of South Australia. During the long journey, the sailing ship is tossed like flotsam, and they eagerly disembark in Adelaide. Here they work on Samuel Davenport's farm.To make more money, they move to Moonta Mines and live on the mining lease, where danger is all around them, until Ben and William Trethowan finally acquire their freehold properties. Clearing Mallee scrub from the land is brutal and the isolation daunting. Droughts, anthrax, financial crises and typhoid hover and strike. The large Bowden and Trethowan families struggle just to survive during the Great Depression. Will their sons ever own farms of their own? Should they have stayed in Cornwall?