Son, Barnaby Joyce, said he hopes he will one day be buried next to his dad at the huge graveyard, at Danglemah near Woolbrook.

"It's a family place and mum's buried there," he said.

"We've got a family graveyard there.

"It's always had public road there. It's always had its own title.

"I'll be buried there as well. It's five acres, I don't think we'll fill it up."

James, known as Jim, passed away at the end of July. He was 98.

He leaves behind five children and 18 grandchildren, plus a significant rural landholding. He outlived a sixth son.

But when the New Zealander arrived in Australia, the injured Second World War veteran barely had a blade of grass to his name. He died the father of a former deputy prime minister.

"He started on 1250 acres at Tarcutta which is not much land in a not much good place. And at the top of his game, probably had about 450,000 acres of country," Mr Joyce said.

"He was very good at business and buying and selling things....

"He could see the value in [land] long before others."

Barnaby said his dad was still buying and selling both property and cattle - and giving the rest of the family advice - up to his final days.

"In the days before he died. I was talking to him about parasites and cattle," he said.

"He wouldn't know what day it was. He wouldn't know really what month it was, but he'd know [what parasite and what to use to kill it]."

Barnaby remembered his dad as an extraordinarily polite man who would never swear or smoke and rarely drink, a strong Catholic and a Republican.

"He was very much a reflection of the Second World War, and people with kids during the depression," he said.

"People who'd grown up with families [of the First World War]. They were scarred; people who'd come back from the Western Front."

IN OTHER NEWS:

Above all, James Joyce never forgot he was a farmer.

Even while working as the chief veterinarian responsible for eradicating the bovine brucellosis bacteria in Australia, he would never prosecute a farmer for not following the rules, Barnaby said.

He'd have a fist fight with the man, but not bring the law into it.

James Joyce's funeral will be held on the weekend in the New England.

The family applied for permission to bury him but were told an earlier approval used to bury his wife Marie Joyce in the same spot was still relevant.