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agricultural country Ido not think it will have very much effect upon it. As to pastoral country* it will have very small effect in increasing the value, for these mountainous lands are not improvable, and you cannot well increase the produce by a railway ; the wool is already brought down cheaply by the return drays. 19. Mr. Whyte.] Are there any grasses ? —The mountain sides are beautifully grassed by nature with a variety of herbage, which has become deteriorated to some extent by the grass fires and heavy stocking preventing the finer grasses from seeding. 20. Is there no way of replacing them?—lf the runholders had a better tenure they would go in for more extensive subdivision. That would rest the country. The leases, although nominally for ten or twenty years, are actually only from year to year, for the Government can determine the lease by giving twelve months' notice. There was from time to time a great clamour on the goldfields for the making of this line and opening up these lands, so that the runholders have always had a dread of their runs being taken from them. I should like to explain this : that there is such a preponderance of hill country in this region that if you dissociate the agricultural from the pastoral country you will render the pastoral country worthless—in other words, there would be no low country to work sheep on if you diminished the winter-country. The measure of carrying-capacity is the stock you can " winter," not what you can " summer." 21. The rent, according to your calculation, is 2-| per cent, on the capital value ?—Yes ; but I believe if this land were offered for sale it would realize what I have stated. There is a great deal of capital in these stations. To get rid of the uncertainty with which the stockowners have been threatened they would gladly purchase the lands. On account of uncertainty they have not gone on with the improvement of the country, in surface-sowing and other ways, which they would be sure to do under a better tenure. 22. That is a point in favour of improving the tenure ? —Yes. 23. Mr. Pyhe.] A great proportion of this country is fit for settlement, according to your description of it : you speak of a fifteen-miles radius?— Yes. 24. Will you say whether there is more country than is embraced within that radius or limit which will be affected by this railway, and which the railway will be the medium of opening up ?— Yes ; it will open up a considerable extra area of Crown land; but you will have to deduct some country from the fifteen miles, for it does not lie within the same watershed as the railway. 25. You have explained the nature of the country as far as the survey has gone : beyond that,, are there not other agricultural lands that will be affected —the Pork Eun for example?— Yes;, there are four or five thousand acres there, also the Makarora and Matukituki Valleys ; probably the whole together would not be more than 20,000 acres. 26. But there are 20,000 acres there for settlement ?—Yes, taking in bush and all. 27. Will you tell the Committee what is the highest altitude at which grain is grown in that part of Otago? —In this particular part, Maniototo, they can grow it up to 1,800 ft., and they do it. 28. With regard to the fifteen miles, it is not positively a radius but a limit ?—lt is a limit, but being once mentioned it is apt to be taken as a direction when you come to interpret the Act. 29. Could it be reduced?—lt might be amended to the effect, " not exceeding fifteen miles on each side of the line of railway, and within the water-shed." That would make it all right. I have already said this mile frontage would work very absurdly. 30. I have your report here—the report of the Surveyor-General made in 1885 [C.-5.] You recommended that these lands should not be sold, but should be held in suspense until the railway is built. Will you tell me the meaning of the word " advanced " used in that report ?—Until there is more population, and until the conditions of the country should be altered. 31. You did not think that certain lands should be sold until the railway was extended to the district ? —Yes; I should like to explain to the Committee what I might call the reason of giving this return at all. It was obtained by Mr. Montgomery, and the direction given to me was not to draw up a general scheme at all, but to say what particular land would be suitable for agricultural purposes. Had I been free to give a general report I would, as lam now pointing out, have stated that it would be an unwise thing to give this land for purely agricultural purposes although it is agricultural land. This land must be associated with the high country if the most is to be taken out of the district. 32. You spoke just now of the " light soil: " will you give the Committee some account of the bulk of the crops grown there ?—Yes. On the Crown Terrace, at an altitude of 1,800 ft., they have grown wheat, for several seasons, as much as fifty bushels to the acre. Oats they have grown—l hardly like to repeat the quantity to the acre, but, according to reports, as much as 100 bushels have been grown to the acre. The Crown Terrace is a flat piece of land, of a virgin soil. It has grown crops for a few years, but I do not think it will continue to do so unless fertilizers are added. But, coming to the district of Sowburn, Maniototo Plain, a digger there brought in w rater from the hills, and gave the land a good soak to start the crops. I never saw finer crops of wheat, oats, and barley than he produced. The elevation was about I,oooft. These crops were grown on land that you would decidedly call "light." The soil consists principally of mica schist, which, where it is decomposed, is well adapted for growing fruit. The finest fruit in Otago is grown up in the Clutha District. 33. Mr. Whyte.] Can water be brought on to this land?— Yes; at the bases of the hills the farmer can take it in little streamlets from the snow-fed rivers. I might say that, in calculating the future capacity of the country, the question is not so much the nature of the soil, as the amount of available water and the facilities for bringing it on to the land. 34. Mr. Pyke.] There is a great deal of lime there ?—Yes. 35. There are what they call travatinos there, which have the effect of an open-air hothouse upon growth?— Yes.