SOMETHING LIKE A POULTRY FARM.

Otago Witness, Issue 2251, 22 April 1897, Page 7

SOMETHING LIKE A POULTRY FARM.

I (From Oub Wetherstones Correspondent.) ; Wetherstones, April 22. :': ' We had a visit last week from Mr Peter Miller, au old Wetherstones miner, who was a ! resident of this district for a number of years. Mr Miller is a native of Denmark, and is an old • sailor. ■ lie was married here, and some of his children were born here. At present he is located at a place called Bankstown, a municipality about 12 miles from Sydney. He was one of the first councillors elected, and at present he is mayor. He owns a 20-acre section, partly cleared from bush. He has THREK THOUSAND FOwr-S on it, including ducks. The ducks are penned iv, but the fowls have the run of the land. Some of them roost in the fowl-houses and the others iv ths trees. He gets between 14,000 and 15,000 eggs in tbe season, and these are sent to an sgent in Sydney. All the cockerels and drakes are sent to Sydney, and also all fowls • over two years old. He supplies the shipping I with poultry, &c. He has six daughters at ' home, who collect ths eggs and help to attend to the fowls. He has had 15 of a family, but some of them are dead His sons are married, but some of them work for him, driving, &c, for he hzs three horses and drays, and three boilers for food for the fowls. It is said that he has cleared as much as £1000 in three years. So show the ups and downs of a miner's life, 1 I may mention that while mining here Mr j Miller married a widow, a Mrs Wright, with one child. Sometime afterwards he took a section of 60 acres, psrt of the Wetherstones Flat, and bought some cattle, going round Belling milk. After a few years he removed to Dunedin, having sold the section and house to Hayes >nd Kofold, of the local brewery. In town he worked in a tentmaker's shop, and ' far six mouths iv the railway workshops, mak-

iug isLrpMilifs. Wiifn work go > slick he went to Auckland, and Irom t.bere to Queensland, :nid finally drifted to Banketown. where ha i« settled. The reason I am writing this is to slow that if Peter Miller had eunk a shaft anywhere in the floor of his house or arouna his house he would have made his pile. A party of eight Chinamen gave the tLeu owners of Peter's sec'ion £40 an acre for the right to miue the ground only. Theue Chinsmen gota« much as 80tZ of gold off owe small pnddock. The ground was between 10ft and 12ft deep. It. wrs reported at the time that the Chinamen gor, £800 , c man. They sold to another pirty of their i coun f .r?inen, and went home to China. After 1 the t-econd party of Chinese getting as much as satisfied them, they sold out to a third party of their countrymen, and le'.t tor home. The third party, it was reported, took about £300 a niau out of the ground. There is a chain road 00 the past side of the section, and the gold wa« going iufco the road. The Chinameu instructed their lawyer, the late Mr Copland, to apply for the road He neglected to do so, and a party of white men took it up, and after a law case it was" . grauted to them The party of five drove tbe ground out, and had the washdirt carted down to the cceek about half a mil?. It gave them over £3 a msn a vrcpk afcor paying expenses. Some ot the miuers said it would have paid them better if they hiid -stripped the ground. There are two 10-aere paddocks oulsidn of this section owned by Me?*rs" Cftwie and M'Cluskey, who got £400 each from other Chinese for tho right j to work the ground.