growing more and more scarce from year to year, and a system, 
perhaps correctly applied to very fertile alluvial soil, for the pur- 
pose of exterminating the exuberant growth of fern and preparing 
it for a crop of corn , is certain to crush upon this stiff clay soil 
even the last scanty trace of verdure. The method of burning 
out was originally a custom of the natives, who by burning cleared 
the forest, tilling it once after the burning, and then again went 
in search of new ground. Thus applied, the system is a correct one, 
but the repeated burning is an abuse. After the first burning 
luxuriant uudergrowth is produced; after the second, tall flax and 
fern, finally dwarf fern and Manuka, and last of all the naked 
soil remains. 
It was a fatiguing walk across a sadly waste plain, although 
on the right the view of the sea and the beautiful cone of the Ran- 
gitoto Mountain , on the left a glance at the deep incisions of Shoal 
Bay presented to the eye a great change of scenery. 
It was not until we approached the lake and arrived upon 
volcanic soil, that both land and vegetation assumed a different 
character. Taller shrubbery intermixed with peach-trees made its 
appearance; a Maori hamlet with some twenty huts lay there, sur- 
rounded with fields and meadows, and the New Zealand flax-plant 
— its tall and luxuriant growth being always indicative of fertile 
soil — stood in powerful bushes by the way-side. We had arrived 
at the foot of a gently sloping hill. 
Large fields , fenced meadows and a farm-house situated on 
the top between fruit and ornamental trees betrayed the industry 
and the labour of a farmer settled there. We ascended the slope 
and found ourselves suddenly at the brink of a nearly circular very 
steep basin , about one mile in diameter and four to five miles in cir- 
cumference at the bottom of which , quite picturesque between wood- 
clad shores, lay the remarkable Lake Pupuke (alias Pupaki and 
Pupuki), the largest of the crater-lakes in the vicinity of Auckland. 
That settlement is beautifully styled “Flora See,” and belongs to a 
worthy German physician, my friend Dr. C. Fisher in Auckland, 
who has established here extensive nurseries and vineyards, and 
