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98. What is the narrowest width of the channel?—At Te Puke it is not much wider than the width of the ship. 99. What is the width of the narrowest place further down?— There is a place where we have to keep very close to the bank, close to MoKee's. We have to follow where the deep water is. 100. With your twin screws, do you not see discolouration in the water after the vessel'?— Yes 101. What colour?— Just sand. 102. Pretty well the same colour as on the bank? —Yes, it varies. 103. Where do you lose the whitey-blue colour?— When we get lower down, the water gets very muddy through the tide-action. 104. How far down do you get the whitey-blue colour? How far down does the colour at To Puke follow you?— Pretty well wherever you go. 105. There is no real change of colour?— No. There is more mud at Kopu. It is a light muddy colour—a cream colour, very near. Frederick Adamson examined. (No. 29.) 1. Mr. Mueller.] You are a farmer at Netherton ?—Yes. My land is Sections 7 and 3, Block XI. The school is on one of my sections. The area of the land is 98 acres and 100 acres. That land is at Netherton. 1 have two other blocks, one of 70 acres—No. 2—and another of 150 acres. It is above No. 7, on the opposite side of the river. 2. How long have you been there?— Twenty-one years. 3. You carry on dairying?— Yes; before the 1907 flood I was milking forty-seven cows 4. Did that flood affect you?— Very much. 5. How much of your land was affected by that flood/ -'Ihe whole of it. (',. What effect did that flood have upon your cows and your milking cheque?—By the statement which Mr. Hubbard handed in to the Commission it will be seen that there was a big reduction. I had to shift my cows. The flood affected me right into the next season. The flood last September hardly did as much damage, because it was a dead time of the year, but I had to shift (he cattle away. I had a little flood in March, but not quite so bad. 7. How many cows have you been milking recently?— Forty last season. 8. How many could you have milked if the land had not been Hooded in 1907 and last September?—l should have been milking about eighty this season. !). Can you put in figures your loss in consequence of flooding?— Depreciation of land, £400; loss of hay, £40; pigs, £50; cows, £15; stumping and breaking up of 30 acres of land,'.£s per acre; and sowing in grass, £150; loss in milk cheques, £200. 10. You have no river frontage?— No. 11. Where does the water come from that goes on to your land?— From the Waihou River. 12. Do you know the river opposite the Netherton creamery?— Yes, 13. Has that narrowed ?—Yes, considerably. There is a bank of tailings there 26 ft wide and -'I It. deep. I have here a sample taken 4ft. deep from the surface, and a sample taken below lowwater mark, also one taken from the bank. [Exhibit No. 16.] 14. The Chairman,.] This stuff taken below low-water mark—how did you get it?—l reached down below low-water mark with a shovel. The sample taken from the bank was taken right opposite the creamery. 15. Mr. Mueller.] You have been in the district twenty-six years. Can you compare the floods ol years ago with the 11 Is now?— Prior to 1907 we had no floods on my land. 16. You own a launch and you are often on the river in your launch?— Yes. 17. What has been your experience as to the shallowing-up of the river?— There is shallowingup m some places Places where you used to be able to get along all right at one time you ran hardly drag along now. 18. You know Mr. John Morrison?—Yes; he has 170 acres on the Ahipukahu No. 2, opposite my land, the block the school is on. 19. What can you say about Morrison's land as regards flooding?—lt i.s a high piece of land I never saw it flooded until the 1907 flood. 20. In that flood damage was done to his property.?—He lost the biggest part of his cows through starvation —having no feed for them. 21. Do you know how many cows?— Not exactly: eight or nine, I think, and also two calves. He lost the milk of his cows. He was milking thirty-two at the time. 22. Did he suffer in the 1909 flood?— Yes; last September. 23. Did he suffer in the flood of March last /—Yes, more than I did ; but the water came a different way that time. 24. Did he have a part of his land resown ?—Y'es, he had to resow it. I have never known Ins laud flooded until 1907. 25. Mr. Myers.] Y,,,i say you lost £40 in hay—destroyed or carried away by the flood ?—Both 26. Pigs, £50: how many pigs?— Forty or fifty. They were not all drowned. 27. How many cows?—l lost three cows from starvation. 28. Was there any special object in preparing these figures?— Simply to give the Commission an estimate of our loss. t v 29 ,' J Y ° U haVe got down here ' " Stum P in g 30 acres of land " ?—lf it had not been for the flood 1 should not have had to stump that land. The flood killed the grass on the land, and I had to stump, plough, and sow it. 30. Would the stumping reduce or increase the value of the land /— It would increase its value. 31. You have 148 acres altogether?— Yes.