ne to go in for more extensive gardening, we rejoice in
a profusion of carrots, turnips, parsnips, onions, taro, beet-root, and
sundry other things.

Fruit can hardly be looked on as a food; it is merely an ornamental
accessory to it, in our opinion. We are great fruit-consumers, but we
look on such trifles as only refreshers for odd moments, and not as
having anything to do with the serious business of eating. We have
pretty well all the fruits that are seen in English gardens, and besides
them we have quantities of various sorts of melons and peaches, also
specimens of oranges, lemons, shaddocks, grapes, loquats, quinces,
pomegranates, guavas, Cape gooseberries, figs, almonds, and some others.
We have even bananas, which are a success in most seasons. The
marvellous profusion and richness of our fruit-crops, leads to the
belief that industries connected with fruit-growing will eventually be
found to succeed best in the North.

Of course, long practice in cooking has made us tolerably proficient in
the simpler processes of the art. Several of us are very fair all-round
cooks, but Old Colonial is supreme in this, as in most things. He is a
veritable Soyer of the bush. When he chooses to exert his skill he can
turn out the most wonderful dishes. Where he learnt, and how he learnt,
no one can tell; but he seems to be a perfect master of cookery in every
shape and form.

In spite of the peculiarities of our table-service, we fare sumptuously
often enough, much more so than many people who would disdain to feed
without linen and dishes and plates, forks, spoons, and other things
that we hold in slight regard. Old Colonial's name has gone abroad
through the country. When any one of our neighbours goes in for the
luxury of a wife, Old Colonial is not infrequently called in to educate
her in culinary matters. He is a past master in endless wrinkles,
dodges, makeshifts, and substitutes of all sorts; and has, besides, an
unbounded faculty of invention that is highly satisfactory to our little
commonwealth.

One hot and blazing Christmas-tide we invited all the married people,
who lived within anything like reasonable distance, to visit our
shanty--Bachelor's Hall, as the ladies termed it. Such an entirely novel
and unusual event as the visit of some of the gentler sex to our shanty
was an occasion of no light moment. Old Colonial determined to banquet
our visitors in the superbest possible style, and vast preparations were