My New Zealand Garden 1 1 3 



and she had seen enough fashion then to last her 

 for the rest of her life. 



I really must cease singing the praises of this 

 loyal little land so loyal that it took my gardener 

 off to fight the Boers suddenly, before he had 

 milked the cow ; but I must be allowed to reiterate 

 for positively the last time that I have found from 

 practical experience that gardening is conducive to 

 goodness, health, and happiness. I have realized 

 the necessity of weeds to keep us at our work, and 

 seen the pleasure and profit that the eradication 

 of them affords to the faintest bump of order ever 

 detected by phrenologists, on which bump should 

 be clearly decipherable, ' Dress it, and keep it.' 



I have scribbled enough of our doings in our 

 adopted happy land, and although my account is 

 as lame as a tree, I am not sorry to have spoken a 

 word for the Embothriums and Jacarandas and 

 all the ' duxes,' if it will in the least degree help to 

 spread their fame or implant a wish in anyone to 

 grow them. I hope I have not boasted of garden 

 lore, nor flaunted my colours too high, in this 

 rambling and most imperfect account of all I love. 

 But, above all, I hope that I have not represented 

 the self-righteous old woman who, when told 

 that she seemed to think only herself and the 

 parson would be saved, said she was not so sure 

 about the parson ! I think I will go out into the 



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