Orchards massed with pink and white bloom, golden kowhai beside the creeks, pastures green as powdered emeralds, woolly lambs skipping all over the hillsides—what a picture of peace and plenty, as one gazes from the window of the express, speeding through the farm lands of the Waikato! It is always a delightful trip, but loveliest of all when the mantle of Spring lies over the land, and the trees are gowning themselves in their new robes of green, and every farm-house garden and orchard is massed with springtide bloom.