Valleys And Plains.

The major part of the province is included in the great Canterbury Plain, which stretches from the valleys of the Ashley and Waipara in the north as far south as the Opihi, which enters the sea a little to the north of Timaru. This stretch of country, about 130 miles long and varying from thirty to sixty miles in breadth, contains in all about 2,500,000 acres. North and south of the plains, the country is hilly or undulating; more especially in the vicinity of Mount Grey, in North Canterbury, and west of Timaru, in the south. Beyond Burke's Pass, following the road which leads to Mount Cook and the glacier regions, there lies a large extent of level country known as the Mackenzie Plains. The name is derived from that of a notorious shepherd who, in 1855, practised sheep stealing on a large scale, and used the plains that bear his name as a hiding place for his captures. The Mackenzie Plains are treeless and dry, hot in summer and subject to heavy snowfalls in winter, yet they are noted for their pasturage. Including the Mount Grey Downs and Ashley Downs in the north and the Mackenzie Country and Timaru Downs in the south—a large portion of which is pastoral land—the cultivable land of Canterbury may thus be nearly all described as level or gently undulating.