Mr. J. M. Furze, sometime of Gift Farm, Dunsandel, and Bucclench Estate, Mount Somers, was born at Wellington, Somersetshire, England, and descended from a very old farming family. He came to New Zealand page 846 in 1871, and bought Gift Farm in 1890 from the late Mr. John Dilloway. It contained 886 acres, and Mr. Furze owned several other farms, amounting in all to 3,000 acres. He resided at Gift Farm, and devoted most of his time to breeding and rearing first-class English Leicesters, with which he secured many prizes. Within about seven years from 1892 he won fifty first, thirty second, and fifty third, and minor prizes, ten special prizes, three silver cups, and one medal. In 1895 he gained eighteen first prizes, two cups, and one medal. Mr. Furze bought his stud flock, in the first instance, from Mr. John Dilloway, in 1890, and the sheep were reputed to be purebred twenty years prior to that date. None but purebred rams were used by him for stud purposes, and sires were from time to time obtained from such breeders as Messrs E. Mitchell, the Hon. Every McLean, and the Hon. Ernest Gray. Mr. Furze had also a small flock of Shropshire sheep, which he purchased in 1894 from Mr. Restall, of Ashburton, and with which he in the course of the three or four years, won fifteen first, seven second, and eleven third prizes. Mr. Furze took a liberal interest in local matters, and was a member of the local saleyards committee, school committee, library committee, and domain board, and president of the Ellesmere Agricultural and Pastoral Association, while he lived at Gift Farm. In the early part of 1899 he sold his various properties in the county of Selwyn, and bought the homestead and 6,500 acres of the early selected and well known Buccleugh sheep station in the county of Ashburton. To that valuable property he transferred his old established and extensive flock of English Leicester sheep, and built a new residence, suitable to the estate. He had nearly completed the re-arrangement of the working of the property, to suit his own ideas, when, on the 8th of March, 1901, he died almost suddenly at the early age of forty-nine, leaving a wife, three sons, and two daughters to mourn his untimely death. He was married, in 1876, to Miss Russell.