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influence at this time. Besides clearing out a great many of the old dissolute sawyers and whalers, it increased the price of produce enormously. Oats went up to 8s. a bushel, and potatoes to £8 and £10 per ton, and the settlers thrived. Afterwards the Dunedin diggings broke out, and so prices never got very low for years after. The cocksfoot industry on the Peninsula was started by Mr Hay. He gave at the rate of 2s. 6d. per lb for the first seed, which he found did wonderfully well in the Bay. Soon it spread, and a demand set in, and in one year Messrs. Hay Bros. sold no less than 70 tons at 8d per lb. Mr. Hay was never covetous of land. He always wished to see neighbours around him, and encouraged them to settle. When he died in 1863 he had only really acquired between 900 and 1000 acres, but he had the pre-emptive right over 2000 more. During the subsequent trusteeship the estate enormously increased in value and acreage. It was eventually purchased by Messrs. James and Thos. Hay, the eldest sons, from the rest of the family, and is now, as all Canterbury settlers know, one of the finest estates in the colony. Some years ago, however, a great misfortune occurred. On the 18th August, 1886, a terrible slip came from the hills above the Annundale Homestead, and utterly overwhelmed it, burying the gatherings—the relics of forty years—in a sea of mud. Luckily it happened in the day time, and there was no loss of life. The bay is one of the best on the Peninsula. Its well managed Road Board has secured good roads for it. It has been well and thoroughly cleared and grassed, and its future is fully assured, as all can see who visit its many smiling homesteads.

The following is an interesting account of an attempt amongst Maoris to break the “Tapu” in Pigeon Bay in 1853:—It appears that late in the year two sealing boats, carrying about twenty-five