But when Mr Watson told Palerang Council a proposed rate increase over five years for his farm, Mill Post, from $9000 to $14,000, threatened the viability of woolgrowers, no one seemed to care.

So he gathered up some history of the district's woolgrowing to display at the Bungendore Show on Sunday.

"I have noticed at the show over the years the number of exhibitors are rarely about broad-scale agriculture, it is all about hobby farms, wineries, the olives and alpacas," says Mr Watson, who has about 2400 fine wool merino sheep on his 1100-hectare farm east of Queanbeyan.

"I can't remember an exhibition on wool, or beef cattle for decades. I thought it was time to remind people we are still around and actually still important because it is the broad-scale farming that preserves the rural landscape, which everyone claims to want," he said.

"I think the population at large are concerned our rural landscape is maintained, and that will not happen if there is an endless spread of hobby farms. That is what drove me to put together this wool story."

Preparing his exhibition rekindled memories of his enterprising grandfather, Frank Hyles, who never came home from a sheep sale without having bought more sheep for a string of properties and snow leases overseen by shepherds.

Mr Hyles lived at Murryong, closer to Canberra and once, in the 1930s or '40s went outside, looked into the west sky and saw lightning. "He thought, you beauty and went back inside and rang up all his agents and said buy sheep, buy sheep, because he thought storms were coming in this dry time," Mr Watson said. "Anyway, it turned out what he had seen was a new weather beacon flashing near the airport in Canberra."

Mr Watson pens his December-shorn ewes and their lambs in a 1950s crutching shed attached to an 1800s shed, originally a dairy, on which was attached yards sized to hold enough sheep to fit into railway carriages bound for the Homebush abattoirs in Sydney.

Back then well-represented graziers on rural shire councils dominated decision-making. "We are in the minority [today], we are lucky to have one councillor," says Mr Watson, who expects Palerang's amalgamation with Queanbeyan Council to bring more uncertainty for woolgrowers.

Mr Watson says people are familiar with the larger woolgrowing properties like Gidleigh, Carwoola, Currandooley and Foxlow. His exhibition focuses on the lesser known Carlton and Turallo Reserve, and includes a panoramic photograph from 1924 of Sharrow sheepyards and homstead, looking towards the Hoskintown Plain.

Wool spinning will be demonstrated and homespun apparel and contemporary wool products will be displayed, along with Frank Hyles' wool prices from 1917 to 1950 and including 1932, the height of the depression when it fetched 11 pence and a halfpenny a pound.