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larger, mostly of about twenty-five acres on the one and about fifty acres on the other. Just north of the town of Ashburton a small settlement of ten 10 acre sections was also established. Five years later, in an address to intending settlers, the official in charge selected Dromore as the best example of a successful settlement. He recounted how he had been told that the soil there was useless. In spite of this handicap, the selectors, assisted by the county water supply, had ‘wonderfully’ improved the land, had erected comfortable homes and had developed orchards and grown crops. Their new school had forty-three pupils.

Other similar settlements were formed under various schemes at Hinds, Methven, Alford Forest, Ruapuna and Overdale (Rosedale).^[1] The Alford Forest settlement, opened in 1890, was one of the less attractive. Most sections were full of tree-stumps and the settlers complained that they had to give up outside work in order to clear them. Yet, two years later men expressed their determination to retain the land in spite of attractive offers for the good will of their leases. These settlements provided a measure of unemployment relief, and succeeded when men could obtain some outside work. Most were consolidated into larger units or absorbed into neighbouring farms when they had served their purpose. Some, such as those at Rakaia, Ruapuna and Ashburton, have retained their identity.

During 1890 the government opened some 62,000 acres for sale in the Rangitata, Shepherds Bush, Westerfield and Hinds districts.^[2] Although much of this land was described as ‘first class’, speculators had long since picked out of it all that seemed worth £2 an acre. It was offered on lease, deferred payment, or for cash at prices from 12s 6d to 30s an acre, but under settlement conditions. Purchasers had to declare that the land being bought did not increase their holdings above 640 acres and that they were going to farm it themselves. The government of this time, under fire for its neglect of land settlement, claimed the result of the sale here and in other parts of the country as a sufficient reply to its critics. The first sale in Ashburton was nothing of the sort. The ‘purchasers’ included such large landowners as C. J. Harper, John McLean and his nephew, G. A. M. Buckley, as well as a large number of men and women who were quite clearly ‘dummies’ for them and other wealthy farmers. In reply to criticisms in the Ashburton newspapers, Donald McLean, manager of Lagmhor, declared that many of the deferred payment settlers had sold to John McLean, being