A d wd-arranged Court represented the prosperous Canterbnry County of Ash- bnrton. The Aahbnrton County, one of the richest grain-growing and wool-producing districts in New Zealand, has an area of 2,542 aquare milea, extending from the ocean inland to the Southern Alps, and horn the hkab to the Rangitsta Rivers, being tbus the central county of the Canterbtq Province. It has over a million sheep in its flocks, and for the season 1906-7 it. wbcst-fields totalled 39,500 ecres, yielding 1,027,000 bnsbels of wheat ; of oats its 40,473 acres yielded 1,295,136 busheis. A special feature of this counq is the large amount of water-race constroction, done b~ the Ashburton Ca1111@ Cnuncil, for the purpose of irrigating farm-lands between the Rakaia and Rangi- tata Rivers. The county's water-race totals a distance of 1,552 miles, and waters an area of 586,000 acres. The chief town, Ashburton, has a population of 2,563. The principal esports are aooL frozen meat, wheat, flour, oats, and an excellent white limestone quarried at Mount Somers, and largzl;r used as a building-stone. The principal exhibitors in the Ashburton section were the Ashburton Agricultural and Pastoral AEsociation, which made an excellent displar of the count;r's woo4 wheat, oats, and barley ; the Canterbury Frozen Meat and Dairy-produce Export Company (Limited), which o n the Fairfield Freezing-works at Ashburton, frozen mutton, and other chilled products ; T. L. Cooper, Mount Somers, building-limestone ; Wood Bros., flour-millers, Ashburton, flour manufactured at the Canterburp Mills ; and the Mount Somers Coal Company, specimens of lignite coal mined near Mount Somers.
OFFICIAL RECORD