H.—35

4

to be conducted upon a very limited scale, not exceeding the area required to be taken up each yeaf for turnips, and did not nearly make up for the loss of old grass so run out. This will explain why the stock has had to be reduced. During the last three or four years most of the grass has been laid down with rape or turnips after the land has been well worked, and with more or less of Ghewing's fescue in the seed, and the results are much more satisfactory, and indicate that the pasture is going to become far more permanent. Prospects. —Though the outcome of the year's operations has not been so satisfactory as might have been anticipated, owing to the unfavourable season and other causes, I have reason to expect that, as the land is more worked and sown with suitable grasses, the pasture is becoming more permanent, and so will enable us to increase our stock again and obtain better returns without having to increase our annual expenditure. I also think that for the current year there is a good prospect of better prices for fat stock, in consequence of the short crop of turnips throughout the district, and the very dry weather which has prevailed for some time in the coast districts, from which the Auckland stock market is also supplied. I have only to add that the manager continues to work the property to the best advantage in the company's interests, and to make the most of it under the conditions in which he is placed. Yours faithfully, The Secretary, London. James Hume, Local Director. Oedinaby General Meeting of Shaeeholdees, held at Dashwood House, 9, New Broad Street, London, 8.C., on Tuesday, the 26th July, 1898. John Clerk, Esq., Q.C., in the chair. The Secretary (Mr. C. Dugald Buckler) having read the notice convening the meeting, The Chairman said, —We will take the report and accounts as read, if you please.—(Yes.)— Well, gentlemen, I rise now for the purpose of moving the adoption of this report and of these accounts, and the first thing I feel called upon to notice is that which occurs in the latter part —namely, our regret at the death of Mr. McCosh Clark, who died, as appears in the report, on the 26th January, and the Board regret to have lost the valued services of an esteemed colleague. Mr. Clark had been a director with us since the commencement of our proceedings, and he was particularly useful because he had lived for the greater part of his life in Auckland, and knew the whole of the North Island well, and was able to give us advice on a great many occasions. The vacancy on the Board occasioned by his death has been filled up by the appointment of General Sir Eeginald E. Gipps, X.C.8., a former director of the company. General Sir Eeginald Gipps was a director with us a few years ago, and he kindly vacated his place in order to enable one of the representatives of the Bank of New Zealand to come and sit upon our Board, and we were very sorry to lose him at the time. Sir Eeginald Gipps will, therefore, be a very useful person to us again. Now, gentlemen, this, as you see, is the sixteenth report which we present to you, and one can always feel, from having been upon this Board from the very commencement, how very much things have changed since we originally started as a land company, and solely as a land company, for the purpose of selling land which we had bought in the colony, and with the expectation of making a considerable profit by the sale of that land. Unfortunately, very little land has been sold by us. Unfortunately, I was one of the very few purchasers who had made any considerable purchase, for, having a son who was going out to settle in New Zealand, I bought from 500 to 700 acres, at the price of £2 10s. per acre, which we had hoped would be about the price which the land would bring in New Zealand. But there has been very little purchased besides that, and we have been obliged to make our land as useful as we could for the purpose of making it saleable, and putting it into the best condition for that purpose. Now, we have always wished and wished for purchasers, but, unfortunately, those purchasers have not come. We, with a tract of 164,000 acres of land, are carrying on a sort of small-farming proceeding in that country with a very limited amount of capital for the purpose. It may be conjectured that changes may be considerable, consequent upon whether the weather is good or bad. This last year has been a very unfavourable year in point of climate—it was very cold and very wet; and then, at a time when we hoped to have some moisture, it was very dry, with very cold winds. The consequence has been that the number of sheep has diminished from what it was in the previous year, and it has diminished the price that we got for them, because they only averaged a price of Bs. 2d. per head in the year 1898, whereas they had averaged 10s. in the preceding year. It was the same with regard to the cattle. There, again, they had averaged £6 a head in 1897, and they only averaged £5 11s. 10d. per head in the year ending 1898. The same bad fortune has attended us with regard to the sale of our frozen lambs, where the decrease has been |d. per pound. In wool, lam happy to say, there was a considerable increase in value. There was an increased quantity, as well as an improvement in price, resulting in an improvement of £552 in the sales of wool this year as compared with the previous year. Now, gentlemen, you will see in the accounts that it would appear there was a credit balance on Profit and Loss Account for the year of £267 19s. 2d., as against £47 4s. 3d. in the last year ; but it must be remembered that the sum of £267 is made up by taking in a prospecting option of £500, so that if we deduct that exceptional amount there was actually a loss on the Profit and Loss Account of £232. Now, gentlemen, there was a hope that we entertained at the commencement of the year that our own original intention of having our land sold might begin to be carried out, because there was, as you may remember, in the course of last year, a special meeting at which an agreement was entered into authorising a prospecting syndicate to prospect for gold over the whole of the company's estate, with a right to purchase, on terms which have only been partially carried out. I presume they had not the capital for the purpose. They paid us before they went out, as was required, £500, and very little have they laid out since. They seem to have