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