C.—l

The total number of sections selected during the year out of estates newly offered and from those remaining for selection from previous years is 232. The arrears of rents due by 280 tenants under the Land for Settlements Act is £8,271, and is £1,078 greater than at the same time in the previous year. The prime cost of eighty-one estates, containing 331,128 acres, repurchased is £1,710,541, and there was £88,073 expended in incidental expenses, and expenses incurred in incompleted negotiations, in road-marking, and in.preparing the land for occupation in the smaller areas into which the properties were divided, making a cost to date of £1,798,614. The lands disposed of are let to 1,789 tenants, at an annual rental of £82,718, and the lands unlet represent an annual rental of £1,910. The yearly value is therefore £84,628. As a whole, the rent actually received during the year is equal to 4'o per cent, on the total cost at the end of the year. This yearly rent is, however, really derived from an expenditure of £1,656,431, the sum of £142,183 which was paid for Hatuma just at the close of the year, yielding no rent for that period. This, being a large sum, materially affects the apparent earning-rate, and if it is deducted from the total cost of the estates the rent paid is equal to interest at the rate of 5 per cent., and the letting-value of the land offered for selection is s'l per cent. It must, however, be considered that there has yet to be expended on roads on these estates about £8,361. Of rural lands open for selection 12,503 acres in forty-one fa.rms are still undisposed of, and there are 233 acres of workmen's hamlets, or land intended for small holdings, in seventy-nine sections which were not taken up at the end of the year. The exchanges effected under the Act of 1894, and under section 7 of the Act of 1900, are given in Table No. 33. It shows that 29,295 acres were acquired by the Crown in exchange for 51,434 acres of freehold lands and a sum of £783. These exchanges were of lands in the Marlborough District chiefly, and were arranged to give both parties better boundaries, and also land for home-stations for the utilisation of the high pastoral country in the neighbourhood.

Summary of the Condition and Settlement.

XIII

Land District. Selectors. Residents Condition. Auckland — Opouriao .. Ok&uia Rangiatea.. Karapiro .. Penoourrt Whitehall.. Hawhe's Bay — Kaureka .. Elsthorpe .. Waimarie Pouparae Tomoana .. Mahora Willows Wellington — Paparangi.. Ohakea Te Matua .. Aorangi Langdale Maryborough — ■ Blind River Omaka Pubipuhi .. Starborough Richmond Brook Westland — Poerua Settlement . . Canterbury — Pareora Studholme Junction Kapua Rosebrook.. Otaio Patoa The Peaks.. Roimata Kereta Braco Epworth Ashley Gorge Omihi Valley Orakipaoa.. Highbauk .. Otarakaro .. Wharenui Rakitairi Waiapi Horsley Downs Albury R.S. 1862 Part R.S. 2682 R.S. 36469, Cannington R.S. 36231 R.S. 36056 and 36057 R.S. 36228 72 9 19 17 34 7 18 46 17 8 13 32 22 37 15 13 37 23 17 13 2 112 11 18 62 6 17 10 22 6 18 28 14 6 11 24 12 35 \ 10 13 ' 34 12 J 19 11 1 52 8 8 Fairly prosperous. Pasture not good. Dairy farms, good pasture. Dairy farms. Dairy farms. Dairy farms. Prosperous, lease conditions complied with. All occupied for pasture. Satisfactory, so far a3 the lands let. Cropped with maiz , , pumpkins, and. potatoes. In oats, barley, mangolds, potatoes, gardens, and orchards. Chiefly maize and potato crops—sheep and cattle. Progress of older settlements satisfactory, dwellings being rapidly erected. Better progress than last year. Season good. Leased with Crown lands. Harvest good, well garnered, improvements well done. Improvements considerable. Not much progress made, season unpropitious. 28 4 10 14 9 4 12 26 4 14 2 10 1 27 70 5 26 21 15 25 74 1 1 1 1 1 1 25 3 10 14 9 3 1 26 4 14 1 10 Satisfactory, and settlers prosperous. Satisfactory progress. Satisfactory; floods troublesome. Improvements well done. Doing well. Doing fairly well. Prosperous; drainage troublesome. Satisfactory. Condition improved. Satisfactory. Doing fairly well; oomfortable houses. Stock paddock. Improving. Making good progress. Tenants working their holdings well. Very prosperous. Both doing well, especially Rakitairi. 18 62 7 24 18 1 15 I 24 64 Prosperous. Tenants doing well. Let as homesteads for other lands.