SomE LETTERS OF PaTRICK MILLER. 137 
Every economy was practised :— 
** I go very little from home, and but rarely see anybody 
here. The more prudently one lives in these times it is the 
more commendable.’’®! 
Personal expenditure was reduced to vanishing point :— 
‘** T have given up my carriage. I keep only a pony to 
enable me to attend to my farming. I have given up all 
visiting and entertaining. I don’t drink a bottle of wine in 
a month, and I wear a coat that about nine months ago 
cost 21s 6d, and I expect it will last me and be decent for 
9g months longer. It cost a sixpence more than General 
Goldie’s.’’> 
The ** New Poor ’’ were known a century and a quarter 
ago, and Miller at this period seems to have had a constant 
apprehension that his affairs might have to be placed in the 
hands of Trustees.% Yet through all that time of anxiety 
and embarrassment, Miller never once swerved from the object 
to which he had put his hand—the improvement of the estate. 
If at first his resolution may have weakened or the cost seem 
too high, he was soon to see the fruits of perseverance ‘-— 
““ The advantages to be derived from improving this 
estate became every hour more evident; but the expense of 
the improvements is great, and the time required to bring 
them into a state so as to make suitable returns. distant. 
Enclosing, liming, breaking and removing stones, grubbing 
out thorns, brushwood, etc., are all necessary work, which, 
with the keep of so many horses, with the wages of so 
many ploughmen and labourers, require much money every 
day. If I can hold out I have every encouragement from 
what has been done. The first taken in-field on the Town- 
head Hill, 16 acres, produced hay that at our price of 1s a 
stone would have sold for £10 an acre—a great return 
from land that 3 years ago paid me only 1s an acre.’’®4 
How the financial returns of the expenditure worked out he 
aiso indicates :— 
‘“ By improving this estate I can after the first years 
outlay draw 15 to 18% on the money laid out and on the 
money paid for the ground; and at the end of 4 or 5 years 
