FIREWOOD—LITERATURE BEER.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 226, 17 June 1915, Page 2

FIREWOOD —LITERATURE BEER.

Firewood in London is quoted at II pounds a penny, which is at the rate of £6 4/- a ton. And it is still going up. Wood is much cheaper in Australia. The writer once owned several acres of thickly timbered land in the Cumberland district, N.3.W. Being anxious to make money, he nppoached a local wood merchant, who looked over the estate and offered eighteeenpcncc ton for the pick of the blue and rd gum trees. This offer included my services in felling the trees. I have since told many London interr viewers that this timber deal made me rich beyond the dreams of avarice, and that from feeding fowls and cows T was raised to position of affluence and moral greatness. One may confide such things to a London Press agent with impunity. He mentally conjures up millions of timber rafts floating down the rivers to Sydney and Melbourne to be sold at eighteenpenco per ton to the eager buyers. A Press interviewer inquired recently whether it was true that a certain great Australian writer had acquired a cattle rancho on the Sydney Domain, out of money earned in literature and the arts. My answer was non-committal, although it implied that the arts in In Australia were so allied to the brewing industry as to leave no...scope for outside investments -on thc part of a writer.