ten per cent on the original outlay, and that I have laid by the remainder of the wool money. I shall have from the wool money a surplus of 630 pounds (some of which should have been making ten per cent interest for some time); that is to say, my total receipts for the sheep should be at the least 1530 pounds. Say that the capital had only doubled itself in the seven years, the investment could not be considered a bad one. The above is a bona-fide statement of one of the commonest methods of investing money in sheep. I cannot think from all I have heard that sheep will be lower than 10s. a head, still some place the minimum value as low as 6s. {3} The question arises, What is to be done with one's money when the term is out? I cannot answer; yet surely the colony cannot be quite used up in seven years, and one can hardly suppose but that, even in that advanced state of the settlement, means will not be found of investing a few thousand pounds to advantage. The general recommendation which I receive is to buy the goodwill of a run; this cannot be done under about 100 pounds for every thousand acres. Thus, a run of 20,000 acres will be worth 2000 pounds. Still, if a man has sufficient capital to stock it well at once, it will pay him, even at this price. We will suppose the run to carry 10,000 sheep. The wool money from these should be 2500 pounds per annum. If a man can start with 2000 ewes, it will not be long before he finds himself worth 10,000 sheep. Then the sale of surplus stock which he has not country to feed should fetch him in fully 1000 pounds per annum; so that, allowing the country to cost 2000 pounds, and the sheep 2500 pounds, and allowing 1000 pounds for working, plant, buildings, dray, bullocks, and stores, and 500 pounds more for contingencies and expenses of the first two years, during which the run will not fully pay its own expenses--for a capital of 6000 pounds a man may in a few years find himself possessed of something like a net income of 2000 pounds per annum. Marvellous as all this sounds, I am assured that it is true. {4} On the other hand, there are risks. There is the uncertainty of what will be done in the year 1870, when the runs lapse to the Government. The general opinion appears to be, that they will be re-let, at a greatly advanced rent, to the present occupiers. The present rent of land is a farthing per acre for the first and second years, a halfpenny for the third, and three farthings for the fourth and every succeeding year. Most of the waste lands in the province are now paying three farthings per acre. There is the danger also of scab. This appears to depend a good deal upon the position of the run and its nature. Thus, a run situated in the plains over which sheep are being constantly driven from the province of Nelson, will be in more danger than one on the remoter regions of the back country. In Nelson there are few, if any, laws against carelessness in respect of scab.