JOHN BROWN'S HOBBY

Shannon News, 4 March 1927, Page 3

JOHN BROWN'S HOBBY

ARISTOCRATS OF BIRD liIFE. SYDNEY, Feb. 17. Mr John Brown, who, as a coalmining magnate and as a celebrity of the turf, is known throughout Ahh tralia, lias his hobby, like other mortals. In his case, it is pedigree poultry. When he returned, to Sydney from a visit to the Old Country a while back press representative gravely asked him about the coal strike which was convulsing England and other weighty problems. John Brown who is a man of few word?, knew nothing. But they forgot to question him about the only subject upon which he was likely to become talkative —the consignment of pedigree poultry, which he had imported while away for his beautiful property at Richmond Vale. It is a vast sancutary for wild and tame bird and animal life. There, for example, one will find geese worth as much as ? 7o guineas apiece; flocks of blue cranes, and all the other aristocrats of bird life.

Richmond Vale is one of the beau?;.' spots of New South Wales, and is suggestive of the rural charm cf English- countryside. If the pressmai who interviewed John Brown on his return to Sydney had chatted with him about geese or native wild duck? of turkey gobblers instead of trying to draw him on such a material subject as coal strikes, they would have touched him on a weak spot. What they missed someone else got a- day or two ago, in the form of a most fascinating story of Richmond Val- -1 and its bird life and waters teeming with fish.