FIJI-NEW ZEALAND EXPEDITION 293 
the combination of a tariff and a minimum-price guarantee is 
operated to the satisfaction of the agricultural producer and 
through this bettered condition, business in general prospers. 
The climax experiences of our trip in certain respects were en-. 
eountered at Wellington at the southern end of North Island. 
This city which is the seat of the Dominion Government is beauti- 
fully located on Cook Strait across which may be seen the moun- 
tains of South Island. The town is pressed in by low mountains 
reminding one of the situation at Juneau, Alaska, where the 
mountains threaten to push the town into the ocean. This re- 
stricted land area promises to be a serious problem as room for 
expansion seems limited. The broad harbor is large and makes 
junction between bold headlands with the open waters of the 
Strait. 
As the eapital city Wellington has numerous institutions and 
a considerable group of scientific men in the various fields of 
government service. We received much help and many courtesies 
from officials of the government who took great interest in our 
program. Others have expressed this appreciation but I must 
mention at least two, Hon. J. Hislop, Under Secretary of Internal 
Affairs, and Mr. William McDonald, Acting Director of the Mu- 
seum. Through their invitation we were given laboratory quarters 
in the Museum building. Only when one is away from home and 
divorced from all the conveniences of his own laboratory can he 
appreciate the real help afforded by the use of rooms suitable for 
looking over and caring for material. We were doubly fortunate 
here, as we had been also at Suva, and at Auckland, in that we 
were not only given the comforts of a building but the assistance 
as well of trained scientists who were fully familiar with the 
region. 
I found a considerable group of botanists associated with the 
various scientific institutions about Wellington. In the Govern- 
ment Museum, which employs a number of men, is an excellent 
botanist, Mr. W. R. B. Oliver; Victoria College has Professor 
Kirk; with the Government Experiment Station are Dr. A. H. 
Cockayne, Mr. Esmond Atkinson and Mr. G. H. Cunningham; 
while near Wellington lives Dr. L. Cockayne, the most prominent 
botanist of the Dominion, particularly in the field of ecology and 
plant distribution. His latest volume on the ‘‘ Vegetation of New 
Zealand’’ appeared just before we sailed and is indispensable to 
any one who is interested in the interpretation of the New Zealand 
