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having sold tlie stock and surrendered the licence, the station was resumed by the Lands Department, which decided to stock it entirely with cattle. It should be appreciated, and it is appreciated by the Director-General of Lands, that comparatively few high-country properties are in the same favourable position for cattle stocking as is Molesworth. Although high, it contains very large flat areas, and the valleys and gullies, instead of being steep-sided, as is usual in high country, are more gentle in slope with seepage at the base where good cattle feed grows. Molesworth is therefore suitable for cattle in a way which is not typical of high-country stations ; in fact, we doubt whether in all the high country there would be more than half a dozen stations of a similar nature. The Lands Department does not regard Molesworth as an outstanding example of how to tackle high country. It regards Molesworth as an experiment designed to retrieve a particular property in the particular conditions pertaining to it. Viewed in that perpsective we consider that the work of the Lands Department at Molesworth has been on the right lines and has been well directed. However, we cannot shut our eyes to the flood of propaganda on the subject of Molesworth which has been issued by the Soil Conservation Council. This has painted Molesworth in a false light. We are satisfied that it was not so painted with the approval of the Director-General of Lands. In fact, we were impressed by the fact that senior officers of the Lands Department did not share the views so widely and repeatedly expressed by the Soil Conservation Council and the Catchment Boards. We have said elsewhere in our report that we consider it dangerous that propaganda based 011 halftruths should be issued, and in which conditions particular to certain localities are alarmingly exaggerated and painted as national threats. Much of what has been written of Molesworth can be unquestionably placed in the category of misleading propaganda. We want to make it plain that no blame for this state of affairs is attributable to the Lands Department, whose work at Molesworth we fully appreciate. There was comparatively little tussock deterioration in the Molesworth area except in the Awatere, and the great lesson to be learned from Molesworth is not so much control of erosion or methods of stocking, but rather the urgent and absolute necessity of reducing rabbits. It is an inescapable fact, and the Lands Department recognizes it, that the destruction of rabbits has not been achieved as a total success at Molesworth. The reduction has been hampered by the heavy infestation on some neighbouring country. Until such destruction is achieved, then little else can be accomplished. On general principle we are strongly opposed to the adoption of any policy which would lead to the selling of stock from high country, particularly Merino stock. Should the Lands Department be successful in reestablishing Molesworth, they would find it almost impossible to stock the station with Merinos. We think it is most necessary that high-country sheep should be retained on their own country, because if they are dispersed replacement will prove almost impossible. Summing up our opinions of Molesworth, therefore, we repeat that Molesworth has not been a sink for public money. On the other hand, its administration by the Lands Department has been prudent and conservative. It has been an experiment from which up to the present little of general importance has been learned. That does not mean that the experiment may not produce worth-while long-term results. The Department has done probably the only thing which could have been done. The overriding factor is that Molesworth was overrun with rabbits. Despite a