Page:Notes on New Zealand (1892).pdf/159

Rh on payment of a small fee, and gives the digger the necessary powers over any piece of land, forty feet square, that he may select to "peg out." Pegging out means planting pegs at the four corners of the piece of ground.

The Government reserves to itself this power of granting licenses to dig over all the land in New Zealand; not only over what belongs to itself, but also over what belongs to private owners; thus the owner of a sheep farm who discovers gold upon his land is not allowed to dig for it and take possession of it without first coming to certain special arrangements with the Government.