I— 2A.

[A. H. COCKAYNE.

for the Live-stock Division of the Department. I know that inability to rear young stock is not an uncommon feature in the pumice country. 42. Mr. Samuel.] You are Assistant Director-General of the Department of Agriculture ?■—Yes. 43. As far as the Taupo country is concerned, do you think that under a Government scheme of group settlement, taking the cost of the country as nil to begin with, and, under the scheme capitalizing wages and improvements, giving the men a start to farm the land after it had been prepared and made ready for farming, it could be made an economic success ? —I do not think so —not on the average. 44. I mean, taking the scheme over 100,000 or 200,000 acres ?—No. I think if the Government were to charge the whole of the labour costs and the whole of the expenses of breaking in the land it would be necessary to write off a very considerable amount; it would be impossible to load the final settlers with the full costs. There are, of course, certain areas which would pay quite well. 45. Take a block of 50,000 acres of fair-class pumice country : suppose we put on men to break in that land, fence it, erect cottages, plough the land, disk it, and indeed bring it into a proper clover, what would it be worth then ?—Up to the clover stage it has been worth nothing. I take the view that that would be only one of the stages towards the final development, and unless the necessary capital for the final development were available you might just as well not have brought the land to that stage. 46. Do you know that a crop of clover can be taken off that land in twelve months ?—Yes. 47. Easily ?—Yes. 48. You can go on to the land and put down your crop of clover immediately ? —You can get a good crop of clover on the first ploughing, and in many instances you can get a quite fair to good crop of turnips or swedes on the first ploughing. 49. Quite so ; therefore, as soon as they go on to this country —if they go on in winter—they can get a crop of swedes and clover straight away ?—Yes. 50. Do you say that the crop of swedes and the crop of clover are worth nothing ? —I do not think that they are going to make ends meet with these crops. 51. lam asking you what the land is worth. We shall go a step further : Suppose you have thrown away your crop of swedes and hay—because you say that the land is worth nothing —the next year you can put the land into temporary pasture ?—One of the methods is to sow a clover and rye-grass with a good deal of Italian in it, to begin with, and there is a tendency to leave that down as long as the clover is growing well. When one gets to that stage one is dubious as to how to develop the permanent pasture. 52. How long will the temporary pasture last ? —On the better pumice country a temporary pasture will last from two to three years, and in certain cases for a longer period. 53. Having done away with the swede and clover crops, when the temporary pasture is in what is the land worth ?—lt is a point I have not investigated. 54. Despite the fact that you have got the swedes and the clover, you say that the land as a development proposition is worth nothing at all at that stage ? —I know that it may seem rather peculiar, but I do not view the land as having become of any real value until it has on it a definite permanent pasture, although during the jteriod of the producing of that permanent pasture a good deal of revenue from the herbage can be produced. 55. You say that it is worth nothing and yet you know that if you have a crop of swedes you can depasture other people's cattle at 3s. a head per week ? —I was thinking of the value of the improvement in the land, whereas your question is rather as to the value of the crop. 56. What I wish to know is your opinion of the worth of the land when it is brought into a state of productivity : what is it worth per acre ? —When it is finally brought in ? 57. Yes ?—When it is finally brought in the best of it should be worth about £30 an acre. 58. You view this land as being worth £30 an acre when it is brought in ? —Provided it will carry at that period a cow to from 2J to 2| acres, and that it does not require more than about 2J cwt. of artificial manure per year. 59. That is fair enough. As a matter of fact Ido not see how you can estimate it at £30 an acre if you make that proviso, because you might as well say it is worth £60 an acre if it does not require any manures at all ? —I have no desire to give an evasive answer. 60. You say, then, that this land when brought into profitable cultivation is worth £30 an acre what is it going to cost per acre to bring it into the clover and swede stage ? lam trying to get these figures because I think the information will be of some value to the country and to the Minister of Public Works, who I am sure would welcome this information ? —I am extremely sorry that I cannot give accurate details, because the costs, of course, will vary very considerably. But one is inclined to think that the actual cost for the first crop or for the first year will be in the vicinity of £4. I must add that I am making these estimates now ; no doubt I should have had them ready. 61. Having got to that stage, surely the land is worth something for the crops on it ? If the Government put the unemployed on that land, if it produced a crop the sale of that crop would certainly pay for the men's future work ? —But it cannot be sold. 62. But it could be used —other people's cattle could be depastured on it ?—Provided they were available ; it would depend on the locality. 63. It does not matter about the locality ; you could get the cattle from all over the Waikato. If people knew that there was a scheme of root-crop growing, they would not grow any for themselves, but would send their cattle there ? —Quite so ; that is the way a lot of the Waikato land was developed. 64. They say, " If others are growing turnips we shall not bother "?—The growing of suitable root crops would be of advantage to the lower Waikato, and the ground, in the earlier clover period, might, under the Government method, be used for the production of calves of a good quality to form

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