on the plains, were certainly best situated for agriculture, but even though one of their early crops of two or yielded at the rate of 60 to 70 bushels an acre, markets for grain were too far off and transport too expensive to justify them in growing more than they needed for their own use. As stock-farmers, however, they were well established by February 1844, then having 76 cattle, three horses and 50 sheep. At Pigeon bay, which was heavily timbered, with very little open ground, only cattle-grazing was possible. Here in 1844, Hay had 18 cows. By February 1844, they were grazing 50 cattle and 500 sheep. Within a few years all these settlers had much larger numbers of stock. Greenwood had about 1500 sheep towards the end of 1845 and Deans' cattle had increased to 130 head. At this time, Rhodes imported 400 sheep. Thereafter the number of sheep increased rapidly. Sheep, however, appear to have been regarded as an investment for the future rather than a major source of immediate income. Cattle, on the other hand, not only provided prospect of a future trade in beef animals, but an immediate return from dairying. Deans, for example, built immediately at Riccarton a cowshed with ten double bails, and at the end of his first season sent a consignment of cheese to Wellington. Cheese-making was one of the main occupations of all these first farmers, not only at Riccarton, Port Cooper, and Pigeon bay, but at Rhodes's establishment at Akaroa. A trade in beef cattle developed first from Rhode's station, which was established more than three years earlier than the others, but by 1845 all of them were beginning to send fat cattle to the Wellington market. Of the three groups of settlers on the north side of the Peninsula, only the Deans brothers appear to have come to an arrangement with the local Māori before occupying the land, and even this agreement does not appear to have been put in writing before 1845. William Deans however, always prepared to be on good terms with the Māori, possibly because he had taken the trouble to learn their language. As finally drafted in 1846 his agreement gave him a lease for 21 years of a tract of land extending across the plain ‘six miles in every direction’ from the tributaries of the Avon River. The rental was eight pounds a