DEATH OF A- PIONEER FARMER.

r-rrrr: ». MR. JQHN GRIGG. [F2,pM OUR COBJtI'ESrONpBKT.] • ' ASBBl)-BtOtf,'Nov. 5. Mr John Grigg, of iLpn.gbeac J h, dae.ct this morning, about five, -o'clock. ■Jhg late |£y J,Qhn< Qriggi <?| Lon.gb.each, wa^rw* of itiie oldest of-'the pioneer culti:;;f^|^i^. 1 Waiting of Mr John Grjgg in '■■ ber of ■ "■ Qmtesm&, 3-Ps?>" tfc a ■chronicle j>'^4 i|ft f^,#jgg «ftppl™nent to the deceased gentleman', wao, he said, had 'be,en a benefactor to the P-r-oyince in many ways : -rriWh^a, in. tjje course ol Nature, ho has 'been, '" borne to that bourn whence no traveller returns," !he, will mot have left 'behind him, as same others have done, monuments to his. memory in, the shape of triumph? of skill, os great public works, with. fche. initiation and epmplefciqn 'of which 'hie name, lias been associated. But his monumenta ■will exist, notwithstatndigg, and "those, of !his blooii who may <bo l^ffc -svilj be. a^ble to poinb to the great pastoral industry of the colony rescued Vy the establishment of the freez-i ing wc^ks which haye. of recent, y ears be* come vary jjromijnenb features of almost every pastoral district. At/ a time when. fel}e prospects of the pastqjia-j industry were far from, cheerful, when sheep vfeio . only valuable for the wool tihey produced, mutton was almost worthless, Mr . Grigjg, largely interested in stook, turned his at'fcentioh to the question! of exporting, frozen mutton to London. He experimented largely M$ assiduously, and though those experiments were very costly to ihim, he had the satisfaction of seeing them crowned with success, and the frogen meat trade 'became the. stool which propped upClantgr? bury tfce land 'teom of fhe later seyenties, jtnd saved a depreciation in tjie value of lamS of from 25 to gO per cent. It would not be gracious to give all the credit to. Me Grigg of establishing this trade, because ha T?as'iK)t §,100:6 in tiie efforts he made, in this direction, Nor would Mir Grigg be at all plsas.ed tot .have.. «yen tihe premier position assigned to him. But every man bow rearing sheep in t>hjs colony, and; who knows anything at all of the $story- : of the frozen meat movement, knows, in how great a degree .the success of that movement was due, fro tie. strenuous and persevering efforts) ■of Mr JohnGrigg. ' MrGrigg m fo his' first appearance as a, Canterbury* settler in 1864, when :he. bought 2{X)O acres a.t Lo'ngbs'ach and a farm at HalswelL It; was; n.o,t,' however, tin 1866 that 'he, brought/ !his family to Christchurph. In thitf yea? h,e bought A.yp.nba, k ? from the late Mr Robeijfe Wilkin, and liyed there till 1870, whe^ he permanently sefctjed at Lcmgbeaoh. By this time he had secu F? d . as leasehold and freehold all the land on tie sea coast between the Ashburton and Min^j Biyei^, The. ares, vu nearly 40,000 a.Qr«s. It was hardly what one would call sgeep (jftttfttry, and then earrkd only a few <^tle throve on it amazingly, and^Mr Grigg drove a great trade in fat c§ttle, sending over to the West Coast digging* some sixty head of beeves every for-fc-njght. Mr Grigg was not content with tjus feKtde. He 4?d not yesfc satisfiefi- with tits ;mm«ng&. estat* lyi»g i n an. unimproved Qondition. mat he made out of it, and aji the capital he could raise, he spent in droning and improving it, and in 1882, w4«n there was hardly any doubt about the iUfcure of the frozen meat trade, he sold off mojit of his cattle, wont largely into sheep, WZ Wth the improvements hohad effected •O-QSJ by drainage and scientific cultivation reaped, large, yields oi ceTeala from his land. A, visitor from the Qld Goui\fery-^a man wlio^e opimpox in agrioultural matters <m#®i some weight in the farming world— I wrote a most growing acqount of what he had. seen at Longbeaoh. He iheaded iis artiole in a magazine "The. Best Farm in the World," and in tie arfcicle. itself set hTra-" self the easy task of proving that •the. heading w^s no empty Therarticlg, was reproduced in most of th.c leading papers of the AustrJilasian colonies, as well asthe agricultural papers in Britain "and America, but not x a voice was raised to question the trut^ of tie Reading. Syrely it must be a, creditable thing to Caiiterbury that with maFvellous unanimity such %n arHcJe ?5h0u14 be accepted on the simple evidence of the facts and figures it gave, 'aoid, the premier position of excellence accorded to a farm on our plains that less than forty years ago ivas""^ dreary swamp, the work- of reclaiming which would have made less stoiiit'-hea.rted and clear-headed men quail! fiarvest' time onLongbeach is a sighv worth goino- many miles to see. - . •. . Mr John Grigg was born afe Bodbrajae, in the parish of Duloe. Cornwall, in the year 1829. His father, whose eldest son he was, was John Grigg, pf Bgdfcd^ne. Mr Grigg Eold his patrimony of Bpdbrane in 1853, and deteranined to go to New Zealand. He sailed from liondon in tie ship Blackwall, and at the end of 1863 knefed "m Melbourne, where he only stayed - "i few weeks, and left in the s.s. Pirate, which, wag the first steamer to go to. New Zealand. On Feb. 14, he reached Auckland, where he rented two farms. In June of tHe sameye^r h& married Martha Vercoe, daughter Of the Rey Henry Yerooe, of Auckland. He pontinued to farm in Aiiekland till 1864. i Some y«4<va a:go, the death of 'Mrs Grigg severed a long $nc& loving .partnership, and (it owe of the many gatherings of Longbeach workmsin; that 'have been kid' by -way of "'hardest hojne,"" an <affectionaite refei'eoce was made by !Mt G-rigg to those of (his co-workers, in building up •the estate who 1 hadi gone jbgnce.^ The latter years of Mr iGrigg's life weTis spent \inidep ,a cloud. Faili.Hg eyesight, that -enjied in almost, if not altojebli&r, total blindness compelled (him to reloiquisGi public life, and' s&ver«l ihoaioupable. portions, bub he bore his affliction heroically, and faced the inevitable witli <souraige anicfc cheerfuiness.