Not satisfied with its assessors’ valuation, it had several special valuations made. Two of these placed the value at more than £40,000 above the trustees’ valuation, one £35,000 above, and the fourth £25,000 above. The Government came to the conclusion that beyond all doubt Cheviot would be cheap at £260,000; and at the end of December, 1892, an order-in-council was issued declaring that the estate had been taken over by the Government. The transaction was completed in April of the next year. The trustees were paid £60,000 in cash, and the balance of £200,000 by cheque.
A few months after the transaction had been completed, a syndicate offered the Government £40,000 on its bargain, but Sir John McKenzie was not likely to depart from his course. He had bought the estate for settlement purposes, and settled it would be; so he immediately laid out the township which now bears his name and had the estate roaded and cut up for selection. There were eighty souls on it when he bought it; in the middle of July of the following year, he pointed proudly to a thriving and industrious population of 650, cultivating the land and making improvements in all directions. There are now more than three hundred Crown tenants on the estate, with 78,000 sheep, over 1,000 head of cattle, and 850 horses. They hold 76,000 acres, and they pay in rent £15,000 a year. The Cheviot purchase has proved to be successful financially and in all other respects, and the estate is now looked upon as one of the colony’s most treasured possessions. Previous to the Government taking it over, Cheviot produced sheep and wool, and little else. Now, with its population multiplied ten fold, it grows wheat, barley, and oats; it has a dairy factory, which sends out large quantities of butter and cheese; it breeds and sells splendid horses and cattle; and to-day it exports more wool, fat lambs, and sheep than it did when producing those alone.
In 1894, Sir John McKenzie was made a happy man by the passing of his amended Land Act, with the compulsory clauses and he at once entered upon his scheme of land settlement, sending people out into the country at what seemed to be a furious pace. The brilliant results achieved by the land policy which he administered single-handed until his death in 1901
