Pietersburg to tap this country. Until such connection is made, agricultural ventures present a good deal of risk, as already explained, but stock might be advantageously reared in this neighbourhood. The sub-tropical area in the Transvaal gives promise of opening for the specialist farmer. The districts round Rustenburg and Marico have already gained some reputation as tobacco centres; but here, as everywhere, the price of land is unduly inflated. The reason is, of course, not difficult to understand. So long as the mineral rights of a property are not separated from the surface rights, land is not sold at its agricultural or face value, but according to some fancy standard which covers the possibility of a mineral deposit being discovered thereon. This arrangement is intrinsically wrong; it reduces all colonization schemes to the level of a gamble in land, and it defeats its own ends. If a given area be auriferous, it has manifestly a considerable value to the miner and speculator, but none to the farmer, who buys with the object of cultivating or of stock-raising, and therefore, if he knew the property to be valuable mineralogically, he would prefer another area. On the other hand, if the said property carry no mineral, why should an unfortunate be compelled to pay an enhanced price for his farm? The solution may be found in the retention of all mineral rights by the Government or vending land company, while the farm itself is sold at its value as a productive area. Possibilities of advantageous settlement of English farmers would readily emerge were this initial error corrected, and the land priced at the same rate as like territory in Rhodesia.
Orangia.
The Orange River Colony—granary of South Africa—seems at first blush an ideal settlement area, because farming there undoubtedly approximates more closely to English conditions and methods than elsewhere on the sub-continent. But the Dutch farmers of Orangia
