2002
In February 1929 the Amiens soldier settler, D.T. Swan, tried a novel approach to farming when he managed to aquire and fence just over forty-eight hectares of land for the purpose of breeding possums. The marsupial fur trade was of some importance to the Queensland economy during the 1920s, and also had the advantage of alleviating rural unemployment. Notwithstanding that a four-week open season on koalas in August 1927 had seriously damaged the government’s credibility in the eyes of the general electorate, the trapping of possums continued intermittently. Swan’s venture was therefore a sensible alternative to indiscrimate slaughter, and he expected to earn in the vicinity of forty pounds per hectare annually from selective breeding and culling.
Honour Denied: A Study of Soldier Settlement in Queensland,
Ph.D thesis, University of Queensland, 2002