In 2005 stock-and-station agency Wrightson merged with South Island rival Pyne Gould Guinness Ltd to form the country's largest rural services company PGG Wrightson Ltd. The deal ended Wrightson's 144-year history as a standalone business and close a chapter on a heritage dating back to the Otago gold rush. Hugh Stringleman and Graeme Hunt retell Wrightson's tumultuous history in the context of and ever-changing stock-and-ststion industry that once boasted household names such as Levin, Dalgety, NMA and Newton King.