Among Kenya's white settlers, Lord Delamere was famous for his utter devotion to developing Kenyan agriculture. For many years his only homes in Kenya were native-style mud and grass huts, which his wife (who was Ulster Anglo-Irish) decorated with their fine English and Irish furnishings. For twenty years, Delamere farmed his colossal land by trial, error and dogged effort, experimenting endlessly with crops and livestock, and accruing an invaluable stockpile of knowledge that would later serve as the foundation for the agricultural economy of the colony.