Tiie Garden in Mid-Winter 



most striking in colour is C. Lathamianum. 

 Their place will be taken by some fine Czlogyne, 

 now beginning to hang their snow-white blooms 

 in profusion. Various species of Dendrobiuin 

 will take their turn later. All these are here 

 of very easy culture, the chief difficulty being 

 to induce our gardeners not to drown them in 

 our absence. 



And in this ineradicable passion for over- 

 watering lies one of our chief troubles. Water 

 is here a valuable and expensive commodity. 

 Each property possesses so many hours' run of 

 water from the le^jada per fortnight ; and it is 

 possible to purchase these rights, or to buy 

 water by the hour from a neighbour who is 

 short of cash. Stealing it by turning the stream 

 intended for his tank into your own is a cheaper 

 and more popular method of obtaining it. So 

 important is the estimate of rights to water, 

 that if you are contemplating the purchase of a 

 piece of ground, the vendor will probably 

 dilate to you, not of its acreage, its soil, its 

 aspect, or its prospective building value, but of 

 the hours of water it possesses. Doubtless in 

 the uneducated mind the ownership of many 

 hours confers a kind of distinction (such as the 



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