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Lake Coleridge : Run No. 179. About forty miles from Coalgate. Area, 18,000 acres, of which only 5,000 acres is grassgrowing, along the Harper River. This run is a fragment of mountainous country (the Craigieburn Range), which reaches an elevation of 6,800 ft. There is no front country in the area. This run is worked with the Lake Coleridge Canterbury College endowment of 35,500 acres, which it adjoins. The boundary of the endowment land is an impracticable fencing-line; hence the desire of the lessee to hold the Crown land, and thus obviate the expense of fencing. This run has little or no value as a grazing-area. We recommend that it be reoffered at the upset rental of £40. Snowdon: Run No. 169. Area, 6,600 acres, consisting of portion of Big Ben Range (4,600 ft.), which separates the head-waters of the Selwyn and Waimakariri Rivers. This is wholly summer grazing-country— isolated —held on temporary license. The carrying-capacity is about 1,400 sheep during summer months. We recommend that this area be offered as a pastoral run, at the upset annual rental of £100.

IV. WAIPARA AND AMURI. Upper Hurunui : Run No. 237. Forty-five miles from Hawarden. Area, 45,500 acres of mountainous country, situated at the head-waters of the Hurunui River. This is a summer run, the vegetation consisting of grassed "tops," available for sheep during the summer months. This run is untenanted. It was offered in 1904, and there was no bid for it. We recommend that it be reoffered as a pastoral run, at the upset annual rental of £50, for a term to expire on the same date as the license of the Lakes Run, eight years hence. It can then be grouped with the Lakes Run. Glynnwye : Run No. 233. About forty miles from Culver den. Situated in North Canterbury, on the boundary between the Land Districts of Nelson and Canterbury. Run covers the whole of the countryintersected by the Lewis, Nina, Doubtful, and Hope Rivers, thus extending from the summit of the main range easterly for about eighteen miles to the Waiau River. The total area of this run is nearly 190,000 acres. It is carrying 20,000 sheep, and carries also 1,000 head of cattle during the summer. Glynnwye Run is popularly pictured as a somewhat rough, outlandish place, difficult of access, with no possibilities of development. It is admittedly rough country, excepting the portion lying to the south of the Hope River (the Kakapo area), which is excellent sheep-country. As regards access, it is more easily accessible than a great portion of the Upper Ashburton County which we have visited. It is forty miles from Culverden, by a good road for about thirty-four miles of that distance. We have acquired a personal knowledge of Glynnwye Run quite sufficient to enable us to form an estimate of the various classes of country comprised therein. We spent the greater part of a week there, quite long enough to gain the necessary information, inspecting the lay of the country and its quality. We have classified the country with great care. It consists of about 68,000 acres of grazing-land, much of it really excellent, including river-flats, some dry and marshy, which carry excellent cattle-pasture; 18,000 acres of grass ''tops" above the bush-line, on which sheep can be depastured during the months of February, March, and April; 69,000 acres of birch forest; and 23,500 acres of barren and worthless country. The grass land and the winter and summer country are so fairly distributed geographically over Glynnwye, and this advantage, together with the comparative!}' satisfactory percentage of lambs, and the moderate normal death-rate amongst the flock, supplemented by (he evidences there are in various portions of the run of the success which has attended surface sowing on rural areas and river-flats, leave no doubt in our minds that the run is capable of subdivision. We recommend that Glynnwye be subdivided into three runs, one run a purely pastoral run, and two runs sheep and cattle runs combined : the runs to be known as Glynnwye, and having a carrying-capacity of 6,000 sheep, the upset annual rental to be fixed at £390; Glynnwye No. 2, having a carrying-capacity of 6,000 sheep and 400 head of cattle, upset rental to be fixed at £330 per annum; and Glynnwye No. 3, having a carrying-capacity of 5,000 sheep and 500 head of cattle, upset rental to be fixed at £380 per annum. Embarrassment which arises in connection with this proposal is the crushing load which new lessees will have to carry in the nature of valuation for improvements effected by the present lessee, amounting to some £6,000. A new tenant cannot afford to pay for improvements. We submit a suggestion on the subject in another part of the report, under the heading of " Improvements on the Runs."

Approximate cost of paper. —Preparation, not given ; printing (1,500 copies, including map), £16 sa.

Authority : John Mackay, Government Printer, Wellington.—l9lo.

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