My New Zealand Garden 



liness and tidiness of person ; that they are more 

 congenial, healthy and thrifty, and that their 

 surroundings are more satisfactory; for their 

 small premises are rendered wholesome in that 

 all rubbish is turned to account, instead of being 

 allowed to collect in heaps and stagnant pools 

 outside their doors ; their minds become elevated 

 by the recreation, and their neighbours' peccadilloes 

 are neglected ; in fact, they are more healthy in 

 mind as well as body. 



The smell of Mother Earth alone is a preventive 

 against disease, and I can remember a governess 

 of mine having to ride behind the plough for 

 several hours a day to inhale the odour, which, 

 above all other remedies, contributed towards her 

 recovery. 



We ought to be as healthy here as material 

 circumstances can make us, surrounded as we are 

 by fresh sea-air on all sides ; but it devolves upon 

 us so to order our ways that we may draw down 

 upon us the promised blessing of Him Who made 

 it, and Who alone can ' keep our foot that it shall 

 not swell,' and ' prosper our basket and our store.' 



In a land fanned by sea-breezes, with an atmo- 

 sphere unpolluted by a dense population, and 

 with the trammels of society greatly modified, all 

 these impart a feeling of rest and freedom compar- 

 able to the exchange of a town life for a country 

 one. I know of some broken-down systems who 



