602

withdraw them as soon as they can be
made out. I

I enclose the list of work performed by
the lithographic printer. Not including
lithographic maps 28,000 copies of
various forms and headings, for the different
departments, have been struck off;
fully two-thirds of this work not being
chargeable to the survey department so
that this branch of the department, must
effect a considerable saving to the Government.

In reducing the staff, I have been
enabled to retain the services of its
most efficient officers, and I trust that
during the ensuing summer, to be enabled to raise both Mr. Mitchell, (who
will have the charge of the Stewart’s
Island surveys), and Mr. Weetman, who
will be engaged on the trigonometrical
survey, to the rank of assistant surveyors.

I have the honour to be,

Sir,

Your most obedient servant,

JOHN H. BAKER,
Deputy Chief Surveyor.

His Honor the Superintendent,
Southland.

REPORT OF CHIEF COMMISSIONER WASTE LAND BOARD.

Waste Land Board Office,
Invercargill, 4th November, 1864.

Sir,—I have the honour to furnish my
yearly report of the transactions connected with the sale, letting, &c., of the
Waste Lands in the Province, from the
1st October, 1863, to 30th September
1864.

From the return marked A. your
Honor will see that there have been
57,837a. 3r. 35p. escheated from the
Crown during the year, the sale of which
has realised £63,088 14s. 9d., or an
average of nearly £1 1s. 10d. per acre.

A great deal of this land is of choice
description, such as the Mataura and
Aparima Hundreds, and did not, in my
opinion, realise anything like its legitimate value. That in the Mataura
Hundred averaged 25s., in the Aparima
Hundred 26s., per acre respectively.
That this land did not fetch a higher
price was owing, I believe, to the general
commercial depression prevailing at the
time the blocks were opened for application. Had it been possible to open to the
public either of these two Hundreds in
the preceding year, I feel convinced it
would have averaged three pounds per
acre. The highest price realised for a
section, was in the Mataura Hundred
40s. per acre, and in the Aparima
50s.

The land fund of the past year is
greater than any preceding year since
the separation of the Province, owing to
the large sales of land effected during
the June and September Quarters. A
comparative statement, marked B. is

The statistical return of the area of
section surveys, &c., performed up to the
present time in this Province, I have
compiled with the greatest care, and I
can vouch for their correctness. The
different classes I have sub-divided the
unsold, surveyed, and unsurveyed land,
is, of course, only an approximation, but
from the different opportunities I have
had at various times, while engaged on
the survey staff, in observing the different qualities of land I have passed over,
has enabled me to form a pretty fair
estimate of their agricultural capabilities.

The total area of the proclaimed Dis-
tricts and Hundreds, is in round numbers
816,225 acres. Of this we have sold
294,428 acres, and reserved from sale for
townships, roads, bush, and general reserves, &c., 59,416 acres, leaving a balance
of unsold land in the Hundreds of
462,381 acres. Of this, I estimate
159,145 acres to be unsaleable, forests,
hills, peat, bogs, &c. At least the
greater portion of the land classed as
unsaleable, and part of the inferior will
not probably be sold for many years;
until land fenced and cultivated in its
vicinity shall, from various causes, render
this land valuable to the holders of property in the immediate neighbourhood.
So the amount of saleable land in the
present Hundreds, is reduced to 303,241
acres. This, I class into—

89,560 acres good land.
119,336 acres indifferent.
94,336 acres inferior.

The area of land surveyed into sections,
is 318,827 acres; of this we have sold
187,144 acres, leaving a balance of
131,683 acres of unsold surveyed sections,
and if we exclude the area of sections
sold before the separation of this Province from Otago, we have only sold one
acre out of every two we have surveyed.

Under the Amended Waste Lands
Act, we shall only have to survey the
land that is actually purchased, and this
will enable me to push forward the triangulation, and the surveys of the main
roads in the Province.