Page:The Coming Colony Mennell 1892.djvu/53

 admirably suited for boating, affording capital facilities for picnickers. A distillery has been established for the extraction of oil from sandalwood, &c, within sight of Lakeside. The station is the junction for a branch line constructed by the contractors for the Great Southern Railway, Messrs. Millar Bros., of Melbourne, with the view of establishing connection with and developing a great timber concession which they have taken up at Torbay, a few miles away on the coast to the west of Albany. Here they have a large freehold, and their idea is, after clearing the ground of the timber, to dispose of the land to small cultivators in a partially prepared state. Mr. C. G. Millar, the head of the firm, is the owner of the fine yacht Saide, and is a member of the Royal Yacht Club, to whom he has recently offered for competition a fifty-guinea cup, to be known as the Australian Cup. He is plucky in all his ventures, and it was due to his pecuniary fostering that Mr. Louis Brennan, C.B., the able mechanical inventor, was enabled to bring to fruition the well-known torpedo which bears his name. The titbits of this district (as a whole, a somewhat barren land), which the Company has been able to secure, consist principally of alluvial flats of humus, or peaty mould, well watered and sparsely timbered, and specially suited for root crops, garden produce, and dairy farming. The close proximity to Albany, with its present and, still more, its prospective markets, are the main attractions at this point. Mr. T. W. Powell, of the firm of Heseltine & Powell, 1, Drapers' Gardens, London, is one of the largest shareholders in the West Australian Land Company, and was the first Chairman of the Board of Directors in London. He came to Western Australia in 1889, and was so impressed with the character of the country traversed by the railway for agricultural purposes that he resigned his chairmanship, purchased large areas of land from the Land Company, and is now engaged in making such improvements as will enable farmers with moderate capital to start at once by putting in crops on land ready prepared for their reception, thus saving the pioneer the usual heavy primary outlay, and ensuring him a quick return for his money. One of Mr. Powell's purchases is the "Eastwood" Estate, of 5,000