Worth £60,000 To-Day.

Of the present selling value of the property 1 consider myself a judge, and I say that it is well worth in the market £60,000. This estimate, I am informed, is £10,000 below that of a competent local land valuer. The value of the live and dead stock on the place I put down at £9000. The returns from sales of stock and produce I can only estimate from what I know of sales that have come under my notice. I believe I am within the mark when under this head I credit the farm with £12,000. This estimate of selling value and return from sales makes up an aggregate of £81,000. If £49,000 be subtracted from this amount we have a gross credit balance of £32,000, which leaves ample margin for interest charges, and any under or over estimates which I may be thought to have here set forth. If such a result in a period of about twelve years can be regarded as "financial failure" we must revise the generally accepted ideas of what constitutes a profitable commercial undertaking. I start with this statement of the commercial position before describing the nature of the various kinds of useful work carried on at Ruakura, in order to correct once for all the singular misconception that the enterprise of buying and improving this property, apart from its public objects, has proved a commercial lose to the State.