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be pre-emptive right. You say about 300 acres really represented the acres in turnips ? —I would say to about 30 acres, more or less. If you want me to figure out the map you must give me a little margin. 176. Are you quite sure there were more than 20 acres ?—Oh, certainly more than 20 ; they kept these sheep going. My naming 30 acres is just by a glance at this map. This land was ploughed by contract and measured and paid for by contract. To find this out I would know by the books. 177. How long had the sheep been on these turnips ?—They went on some time in August. 178. 646, you believe ?—Yes. 179. How much feed was left there by the middle of October ?—Oh well, the feed was getting down then because 180. There had been some six hundred sheep on it for about a couple of months ? —Yes. 181. Apart from the turnips being eaten off, was it not getting rather late in the season for turnips ? —Generally speaking turnips are all over by that time pretty well. 182. Were there any turnips to the north of that strip of land or were they further up ?—They might have been. 183. This 30 acres covered the whole of the turnip-area ?—I would not say it did take in the whole of the turnips on the pre-emptive right; I would not bind myself to that. There was a lot of feed there —stubble and oats. 184. I suppose there is a considerable proportion of rocks and gullies ?—Not bad gullies. It is pretty well level country. 185. What proportion is ploughed ?—I have never been on the land since I left. 186. You would rather not estimate perhaps ? —I would estimate that the pre-emptive right had not a great deal of gullies. As for rocks, there was not much ; you could plough up to the rock bottom. 187. Mr. Justice Cooper.] Do you put that plan in ? 188. Mr. Atkinson.] Yes, your Honour. I was going to ask him one or two points on it. (To witness): You represent " yellow" for stubble. Would that be correct ? For tussock and rock, " white " ? —lt needs a cast-iron memory to say where the rock and stubble was after nineteen years ; it was mixed, do you see. 189. You were saying that alongside the pre-emptive right there would not be much on Meikle's land to attract sheep ? —Not at the time I left—the 19th October. There is no growth much anywhere on 19th October. 190. You were saying that oats would not be springing much about that time ? —Not unless it was superior land to what is about on this part. 191. Was that not very good land ?—No ; you will not get good land for 10s. per acre. This block of land, if I remember rightly, they obtained for only 10s. an acre. 192. You would not get it for 10s. now, I expect ?—You might, and perhaps less. 193. What about the cultivation of the other parts of Meikle's property ? —What proportion do you mean. 194. Take the central portion. Can you give us a general description of the cultivation ? How many acres had he in English grasses ? —I could not tell. I had no privilege from Mr. Meikle to make up his acreages. 195. And you did not form any estimate ? —Meikle was as good a farmer as the people in the surrounding country ; he put his land to as good account as anybody else, as far as I can remember. 196. You were not familiar then with his paddocks ?—I used to be fairly familiar with them. 197. Dr. Findlay called your attention to the paddock where the sheep were found : what was the fence down that paddock ?—I noticed that Meikle's stock remained stationary in one paddock fairly well. 198. Do you know where his horse paddock was ?—Well, he might have his horses in one paddock one day and in another paddock another day. " 199. You cannot say whether the paddock marked " Horse paddock " there was his horse paddock ?—As I was saying he might have his horses in one paddock one day and in another paddock another day. Which paddock he named " horse paddock "I do not know. 200. What sort of a fence was there around the horse paddock ?—He kept his fence good. 201. How many wires did it have? —Generally speaking, a fence has six or seven plain wires and a barb. 202. Can you swear it was not a two-wire fence and no barb ?—I could not swear at all to the horse paddock you refer to. I was not dwelling close to his place. 203. What was the width of the gap you spoke of at Lambert's hut ?—The width of the roadline. 204. Where the southern boundary of the turnips stops you can see where the fence stops there ; it is the boundary between the turnips arrd the tussock so marked, before you came to the Mimihau ? —There was a dog-chain there. 205. Was there a dog-chain there always ?—Oh, yes. 206. What was the width of the gap ?—I think it was the road-line. 207. Was the road-line a chain wide ? —I think it was all a chain wide. 208. Do you not think the gap was \\ chains or 3 chains wide ? —No; the fence came down, and the hut was just at the corner. 209. Do you think it was only a chain gap ?—I think it would not be more than a chain. 210. There is no fence just there except on the one side. There is a fence on the north side of the road, and not on the south. I was trying to get the width of the gap on the western end ?—I think it would be a chain wide ; that is from memory. I have not seen the hut or the ground since I left. 211. That is why I put it to you that it w r as 3 chains wide ? —The fence ended at the road-line