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and obstruction. All the principal runs between the Rangitata and the Ashburton rivers are shown on a map of 1856 with the numbers he allotted. But from 1854 they were controlled by the Canterbury Commissioner of Lands, under the new Provincial Government and later, all but Laghmor, part of Longbeach and Shepherds Bush were given Canterbury numbers, that is, their owners were issued with fresh licences and accepted slightly higher rents and more onerous conditions under the Canterbury Land Regulations. This was not the only respect in which Lagmhor was exceptional. It was characteristic of the history of the station, for example, that the three McLean brothers—John, Allan and Robertson—secured it by contesting the rights of the first holder, C. C. Haslewood. They then tried to force John Hall out of neighbouring Westerfield, but the Canterbury Land Board, strengthened by Hall’s determination, showed little sympathy with this second attempt to exploit the provisions of the land regulations. At the same time, the Land Board began a long campaign to remove the McLeans from two nearby runs—No. 31 and 32. A case brought against them for £10,000 finally came before the court in December 1862. The board secured £2,000 damages and forfeiture of the runs. Much later, in the 1880s, after John McLean had freeholded all the valuable land on Lagmhor, he was not above trying to obtain parts of the remainder at the lower prices granted for settling poor men on small farms.

A vivid account of the business of taking up a run is given by Lawrence James Kennaway who with his brothers, Walter and John, and Frederick William Delamain squatted on Alford Station until disputes about boundaries were settled by survey. Admittedly the conditions made their experience harder than was usual. In July 1853 Lawrence reconnoitred the country across the ‘Harketere’ which was ‘as far as we could judge, from a rough knowledge of an unsurveyed country, uncovered by the claims of any previous explorer’.^[1] He selected it in spite of the warning of some extremely cold nights spent there. Late in 1854, Lawrence and three men arrived on the run with their sheep.

1. ↑ L. J. Kennaway, Crusts, p.37